Mark Air Express Cessna 208 accident
Cessna 208 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to King Salmon Airport (AKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90LA001
- 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
- 0 · 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
- N9382F
- Operator
- Mark Air Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo King Salmon Airport (AKN), KING SALMON, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIR TAXI PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING TO TRANSPORT A HUNTING PARTY FROM A SMALL LAKE WHICH HE HAD NOT LANDED ON BEFORE. HE REPORTED THAT IT WAS HIS LAST FLIGHT OF A VERY BUSY FLYING DAY, AND THAT THE HUNTERS WERE ALREADY A DAY LATE IN BEING PICKED UP DUE TO THE WEATHER. HE SAID THAT WHILE HE WAS LANDING AND LOADING HIS PASSENGERS, THE WIND SHIFTED. HE WAS UNAWARE OF THE WIND SHIFT. THE WIND WAS BLOWING OVER A SMALL HILL BESIDE THE LAKE THAT CREATED A DOWNDRAFT. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, WHEN THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE, THE TAKEOFF WAS DELAYED DUE TO THE WINDSHIFT AND DOWNDRAFT, AND THE AIRPLANE WAS UNABLE TO GAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE TO CLEAR THE FAR SHORE.
Probable cause
IMPROPER PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE: THE SURROUNDING TERRAIN, UNFAVORABLE WIND, DOWNDRAFT, THE PILOT'S LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH THE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA, AND HIS SELF INDUCED PRESSURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC90LA001
- Event ID
- 20001213X29510
- Case number
- ANC90LA001
- 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 1989-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cff3a586a8b52b2e64e83e4cc85b3e94a7f6bcbeed88838f7dd85fdf928deb4e; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:07:50.921Z.