MarkAir Express Cessna 208 accident
Cessna 208 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Cold Bay Airport (CDB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC91FA018
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Cessna 208
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N9444F
- Operator
- MarkAir Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cold Bay Airport (CDB), COLD BAY, AKTo not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT DEPARTED COLD BAY FOR THE APRX 15 MIN FLT TO FALSE PASS. THERE ARE NO WX REPORTING FACILITIES AT FALSE PASS. COLD BAY WX WAS 4,500 FT OVCST, LIGHT RAIN & FOG; FORECAST CALLED FOR FREQ CEILINGS BELOW 1,000 FT. WRECKAGE LOCATED BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS. FALSE PASS WX ESTIMATED 400 FT OVCST, 2-3 MI IN RAIN & FOG, WINDS 25-30 KTS. FISHING BOAT CAPTAIN IN AREA ESTIMATED WINDS DOWN THE MOUNTAIN AT 60 MPH OR GREATER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER DECISION TO CONTINUE FLIGHT INTO AN AREA OF MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AND ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS. THE TERRAIN AND WEATHER WERE FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC91FA018
- Event ID
- 20001212X24710
- Case number
- ANC91FA018
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7b2dc4ad1ef94384d499d4d846e925c86cb96054d43c7db2b65b0a39b9ea832f; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:05:08.983Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N9444F; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, HERA.