Wilbur'S Cessna 402 accident
Cessna 402 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC87MA057
- 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
- Visual 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
- N967JW
- Operator
- Wilbur'S
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS ON THE LAST LEG OF A SCHEDULED COMMUTER FLIGHT, WHEN IT CRASHED IN A HEAVILY WOODED AREA WHILE MAKING A VFR APPROACH TO MERRILL FIELD, ANCHORAGE, AK. THE CAPT AND HIS SOLE PASSENGER WERE KILLED IN THE CRASH WHEN THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND UPSIDE-DOWN IN A NEAR VERTICAL ATTITUDE. THE AIRPLANE'S COPILOT, WHO HAD DEPLANED MINUTES BEFORE THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT, SAID HE DID NOT SEE THE CAPT USE THE AIRCRAFT'S AUXILIARY FUEL TANKS AT ANY TIME DURING THAT EVENING'S EARLIER FLIGHTS. THE AIRPLANE'S MAIN FUEL TANKS HOLD 100 GALLONS OF USEABLE FUEL; IT IS ESTIMATED THAT THE AIRPLANE WOULD HAVE CONSUMED SLIGHTLY MORE THAN 100 GALLONS OF FUEL AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. AMPLE FUEL REMAINED IN THE AUXILIARY TANKS, BUT AN ENGINE RESTART CANNOT BE READILY ACCOMPLISHED IF THE AUXILIARY TANKS ARE NOT SELECTED PRIOR TO THE ENGINE'S QUITTING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC87MA057
- Event ID
- 20001213X30565
- Case number
- ANC87MA057
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1987-04-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0877ee1ccde5df7f3a214803ddd8863c8450ad22fd90012528895a11a1a5f242; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:14:45.444Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N967JW; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.