ANC85FA138 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Red Devil Airport (RDV) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC85FA138
- 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
- 4 · 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
- General aviation
- 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 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N12904
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Red Devil Airport (RDV), RED DEVIL, AKTo Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 › Clearance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER THE PLT TOOK OFF ON A NGT FLT TO BETHEL, THE ACFT CRASHED JUST NORTH OF THE EAST/WEST RWY IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE & ON A SOUTHWESTERLY HEADING. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED DURING IMPACT, BUT CONTD SLIDING APRX 35 YDS TO THE NORTH EDGE OF THE RWY, THEN OVERTURNED & CAME TO REST ABOUT 120 FT FROM THE INITIAL IMPACT POINT. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD LANDED AT SOME TIME BTN 2300 & 0015 ADT. AT ABOUT 0030, THICK FOG FORMED IN THE VICINITY OF THE ARPT WHICH WAS LOCATED BESIDE A RIVER. REPORTEDLY, THE ACFT TOOK OFF ABOUT 5 MIN PRIOR TO THE ACDNT (APRX 0055 ADT). AT ABOUT THE TIME OF THE ACDNT, A WITNESS ON A RIVER BARGE SAW AN ACFT FLYING ALONG THE RIVER, HEADING TOWARD THE ARPT. THE WRECKAGE WAS NOT FND UNTIL APRX 0900 WHEN ANOTHER ACFT WAS TAXIING TO TAKEOFF. THE PLT HAD PURCHASED SOME ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES & WAS TRANSPORTING THEM IN THE ACFT. THE SEAL OF 1 BOTTLE WAS BROKEN, BUT THE BOTTLE WAS ALSO BROKEN. A CHECK OF THE PLT'SBLOOD SHOWED ONLY A TRACE OF ALCOHOL WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO PUTREFACTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC85FA138
- Event ID
- 20001214X36949
- Case number
- ANC85FA138
- 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: 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: c6cae55e24f241a274a135f39704cfb1b1db6a4306b5c7b3de7ce967e77c9f0c; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:54:43.870Z.