Wilburs Cessna 402B accident
Cessna 402B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Sleetmute Airport (SLQ) to Merrill Field (MRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC88FA111
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Cessna 402B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 402
- 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
- N5718M
- Operator
- Wilburs
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sleetmute Airport (SLQ), SLEETMUTE, AKTo Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, 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 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › VFR flight into imc, attempted
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE ON-DEMAND-CHARTER FLIGHT WAS TO ORIGINALLY PICKUP PASSENGERS AND CARGO BUT A LANDING GEAR PROBLEM FORCED ANOTHER AIRPLANE WITH A MECHANIC TO BE DISPATCHED. THE OTHER AIRPLANE RETURNED WITH THE PASSENGERS AND THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE WAS REPAIRED BY THE MECHANIC AND DEPARTED AT A LATER TIME WITH THE CARGO ON BOARD. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT ON A FLIGHT PLAN. INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED FROM 7000 FEET MSL TO 12,500 FEET MSL AS REPORTED BY THE OTHER COMPANY AIRPLANE. THE AIRCRAFT WAS FOUND ON THE SIDE OF MT. TORBERT AT THE 10,570 FOOT LEVEL. THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND WAS FOUND IN THE RIGHT PILOT SEAT WITH A NON-AVIATION RELATED BOOK IN HIS LAP. THE MECHANIC WAS FOUND IN THE LEFT PILOT SEAT WITH A WORLD AERONAUTICAL CHART, CD-11 OPEN ON HIS LAP. THE MECHANIC HELD A COMMERCIAL PILOTS CERTIFICATE BUT NO INSTRUMENT RATING. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED WEAKNESSES IN COMPANY OPERATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC88FA111
- Event ID
- 20001213X26405
- Case number
- ANC88FA111
- 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 1988-08-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c70c356fcc9bc3e814d2838e5b47ebbbb295dd9dd2e4a3366b9d68d644ae5af6; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:10:47.347Z.