ANC90LA189 · Maule M-4-210C
Maule M-4-210C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Yuknis Airport (23AK) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90LA189
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Maule M-4-210C
- Aircraft type
- Maule M-4
- 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
- N51441
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuknis Airport (23AK), LIME VILLAGE, AKTo Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BFR FLT FM ANCHORAGE TO BETHEL, AK, NON-INST RATED PLT WAS ADZD THAT VFR FLT WASN'T RCMDD. EN ROUTE, HE CONVERSED WITH MCGRATH FSS WHILE VFR-ON-TOP & INDCD HE WOULD DSCND THRU HOLE IN CLDS TO LND/REFUEL AT LIME, AK. AT 1948 ADT, HE RPRTD EN ROUTE AGAIN, 150 MI EAST OF BETHEL. AT 2054, PLT CTCD BETHEL FSS FOR TFC & WX ADZY & RPRTD 40 MI EAST IN 'A LITTLE BIT OF FOG.' ABT 10 MIN LTR, HE SAID HE WAS GETTING DISORIENTED, REQD ASSISTANCE, THEN RPRTD '60 MI OUT.' HE INDCD HE COULDN'T SEE TO SET TRANSPONDER TO 7700 (AT NGT). AT 2106, HE RPRTD AT 6000' & ASKED ABT FCST CIG & 'HOW HI CAN I GO TO GET UP OUT OF THIS IF I GET SOME REFERENCE.' RDO CTC WAS LOST FOR ABT 12 MIN, THEN PLT SAID HE WAS AT 3700' & STILL 58 MI FM BETHEL. NO DF STROBE OR RADAR INFO WAS OBTAINED, THOUGH A DF STEER WAS BGN AT 2119, BUT WAS NOT ATTAINED. ACFT IMPACTED 45-50 DEG RISING TRRN ABT 100' BLO MTN RIDGE AT 3200' LVL. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FND. EXAM REVEALED: ENG RPM 2699, THROTTLE/MIXTURE FULL FWD, AIRSPD 30 KTS. PROP WAS FND 15' UPHILL FM WRECKAGE WITH EXTSV DMG.
Probable cause
CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE AND CLEARANCE ABOVE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, ADVERSE TERRAIN AND WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE, AND THE PILOT BECOMING LOST OR DISORIENTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC90LA189
- Event ID
- 20001212X24174
- Case number
- ANC90LA189
- 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 1990-10-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9b6987b3088715c4a0b6cd64ee172108bf6da2c927dd28dfbad010b8fbe645ae; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:08:10.640Z.