Camai Air Cessna 172 accident
Cessna 172 · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Atmautluak Airport (4A2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC01LA028
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 172
- 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
- N19771
- Operator
- Camai Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Atmautluak Airport (4A2), Atmautluak, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial pilot stated that while on final approach to runway 33, he inadvertently allowed the airplane to descend below his intended glide path. In an attempt to arrest the descent he applied full engine power, but the airplane continued to descend. The airplane inadvertently touched down on the snow-covered approach end of the runway, about 15 yards short of the runway surface. As he attempted to abort the landing, the airplane become airborne, drifted to the left of the runway, and settled into an area of soft snow. During the second touchdown, the nose wheel collapsed at the firewall bulkhead. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the engine firewall.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a proper glidepath during final approach. A factor associated with the accident was soft terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC01LA028
- Event ID
- 20010221X00479
- Case number
- ANC01LA028
- 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, coordinates. 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: ca6d8f2cc81da6c057cf1048c0901c4d34b92c06bd88a2991289929ed26a5df4; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:18:14.888Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N19771; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, HYQA.