ANC01TA032 · Cessna 172
Federal Aviation Administration Cessna 172 · Accident: on ground/water encounter with weather during landing
From Bethel Airport (PABE) to Kipnuk Airport (PAKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC01TA032
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
- N737CU
- Operator
- Federal Aviation Administration
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (PABE), Bethel, AKTo Kipnuk Airport (PAKI), Kipnuk, 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private certificated pilot/owner was landing at a remote airport. The purpose of the flight was to work on the FAA's VOR building at the destination airport. The pilot is an employee of the FAA's Airways Facilities Branch. The pilot said that his check of weather conditions included a wind report of 060 degrees at eight knots. Upon arrival over the airport, the pilot said he visually checked the wind sock at the airport. The wind sock frame appeared to be oriented about 150 degrees, but the tail of the sock was blowing at an angle. The wind appeared to be 060 degrees at 10 knots, with gusts to 15 knots. The pilot landed on runway 33, touching down at the approach end of the runway. The runway surface was icy, and about 300 feet after touchdown, the airplane was blown to the left. The pilot was unable to correct the left drift, and the airplane departed the left side of the runway, into an area of soft snow. The airplane nosed over, and received damage to the wings and vertical stabilizer. The remarks section of the airport facility directory/Alaska supplement notes that the airport is unattended, the runway condition is not monitored, the airport has frequent crosswinds, and the windsock at the south end of the airport is damaged, and not functioning properly.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for a crosswind during the landing roll. Factors in the accident were the presence of a crosswind, an icy runway and snow covered terrain, the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation, and an inaccurate wind direction indicator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC01TA032
- Event ID
- 20010221X00481
- Case number
- ANC01TA032
- 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, 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: 8e1bffc3f6ed2fbec273f8ecbbbbc56b491989e3b3b22688352ea4c7def71afd; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:12:49.288Z.