Ryan Air Service Cessna 402 accident
Cessna 402 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Wales Airport (WAA) to Nome Airport (OME)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC89FA137
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 402
- 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
- N12333
- Operator
- Ryan Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wales Airport (WAA), WALES, AKTo Nome Airport (OME), Nome, 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
- 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 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG ARRIVAL, RYAN AIR FLT 2401 (CESSNA 402, N12333) CONTACTED NOME FSS & RPRTD 15 MI WEST OF NOME. THE PLT WAS ADZD THE WX AT NOME WAS BELOW BASIC VFR. THE PLT REQUESTED A SPECIAL VFR CLNC. HE WAS ADZD TO REMAIN IN VFR CONDITIONS OUTSIDE THE CONTROL ZONE & TO STANDBY FOR A CLNC. LATER, WHEN FSS PSNL TRIED TO CONTACT FLT 2401 TO ISSUE THE CLNC, THERE WAS NO REPLY FROM THE PLT. SUBSEQUENTLY, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED FOR THE ACFT. FOUR DAYS LATER, IT WAS FOUND WHERE IT HAD CRASHED AT ABOUT 450' MSL ON THE EAST EDGE OF SLEDGE ISLAND, APRX 18 MI WEST OF NOME. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THE ACFT HAD CRASHED INTO RISING TERRAIN, WHILE IN LEVEL FLT ON A HEADING OF ABOUT 250 DEG. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS EVIDENT. THE 1300 ADT WX AT NOME WAS IN PART: 400' OVC, VIS 2 MI WITH RAIN & FOG, WIND FROM 120 DEG AT 12 KTS.
Probable cause
CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC) BY THE PILOT, AND HIS IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION. THE WEATHER AND TERRAIN CONDITIONS WERE CONSIDERED TO BE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC89FA137
- Event ID
- 20001213X28994
- Case number
- ANC89FA137
- 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: a1c5a3e907d5ce6eb2fcc40cef490f10f438e8e8d0b65453b3879743efb7ae65; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:08:27.043Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N12333; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.