ANC90LA173 · Piper PA-32RT-300T PA-32RT-30
Piper PA-32RT-300T PA-32RT-30 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Valdez Pioneer Field (VDZ) to Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90LA173
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32RT-300T PA-32RT-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N393HM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valdez Pioneer Field (VDZ), Valdez, AKTo Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ), Palmer, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fuselage, crew compartment › Smoke
- Powerplant › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 20 MINUTES AFTER TAKING OFF ON A VFR FLIGHT FROM VALDEZ TO PALMER, AK, THE PILOT REPORTED A ROUGH-RUNNING ENGINE AND SMOKE IN THE CABIN. ABOUT ONE MINUTE LATER, HE REPORTED THAT HE WAS LOSING VISIBILITY BECAUSE OF SMOKE IN THE CABIN AND DECLARED AN EMERGENCY. RADIO CONTACT WITH THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOST, AND IT WAS PRESUMED TO HAVE CRASHED IN PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND NEAR GLACIER ISLAND, ABOUT 30 MILES WEST-SOUTHWEST OF THE DEPARTURE POINT. FOUR DAYS LATER, THE PASSENGER'S BODY WAS RECOVERED FROM THE WATER IN THAT AREA. A POST-MORTEM EXAM REVEALED THE PASSENGER HAD DROWNED. ON 9/10/90, A 4 FT SECTION OF ONE OF THE AIRCRAT'S WINGS WAS FOUND ON A BEACH ABOUT 2-1/2 MILES FROM WHERE THE PASSENGER'S BODY WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
UNDETERMINED MECHANICAL FAILURE(S) THAT RESULTED IN LOSS OF ENGINE POWER, SMOKE IN THE COCKPIT, AND A SUBSEQUENT EMERGENCY DESCENT FOR A FORCED LANDING (DITCHING) AT SEA. THE LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN FOR A FORCED LANDING WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC90LA173
- Event ID
- 20001212X24159
- Case number
- ANC90LA173
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-09-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3e1acf0e0789d1fb5daf6193f2e35b930474b3c0c49eb4965945cfbed62e3ec2; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:14:35.692Z.