Willow Air Service de Havilland DHC-2 accident
de Havilland DHC-2 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From HIDDEN RIVER, AK to Z22 · Willow, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC85FA184
- 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
- 3 · 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
de Havilland DHC-2
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-2
- 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
- N5317G
- Operator
- Willow Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HIDDEN RIVER, AKTo Z22 · Willow, 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 · cruise
- 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
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Terrain condition › Mountainous/hilly
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TERRAIN IN A MOUNTAIN PASS AT AN ELEVATION OF 3600 FT MSL. THE PLT OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING AT 1329 GMT ON 9/26/86 AT WHICH TIME MERRILL PASS WAS FORECAST TO BE CLOSED BY 1100 ADT DUE TO DETERIORATING WX. THE LAST RADIO COMMUNICATION WITH THE ACFT WAS AT 1803 GMT WHEN CONTACT WAS MADE WITH MCGRATH FSS. AT THIS TIME THE PLT MADE A PLT REPORT STATING THE WX AT MERRILL PASS WAS MARGINAL; 2 MILES VIS WITH SNOW AND OCCASIONAL MODERATE TURBULENCE. THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED ON 6/29/85 AND INDICATED THE ACFT CONTACTED THE TERRAIN IN A RELATIVELY LEVEL ATTITUDE WITH CONSIDERABLE AIRSPEED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC85FA184
- Event ID
- 20001214X37658
- Case number
- ANC85FA184
- 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: 5a1ca079f5b844bb0ce612afc6e71040386fd1095b9bbd02fb2d1d60e01f407d; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:24:48.997Z.