Priority Air Charter Cessna 208B accident
Cessna 208B · Accident
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP) to Willow Run Airport (YIP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA093
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 208B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N228PA
- Operator
- Priority Air Charter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MNTo Willow Run Airport (YIP), Detroit, MI
- 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
- Other
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not possible
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Ice/frost removal from aircraft, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed with the airplane contaminated with ice, into known severe icing conditions, and was unable to maintain altitude, subsequently impacting trees and terrain. Witnesses reported the accident airplane arrived at the departure airport contaminated with ice. Several witnesses stated they asked the pilot if he needed the airplane deiced prior to his next departure and the pilot stated he did not need any deice service. Several witnesses said they noticed the pilot chipping-off ice from the airplane prior to his departure. While en route the pilot reported the airplane had encountered icing conditions and he was unable to maintain altitude. Several thick pieces of ice were recovered around the accident site and one of the recovered ice pieces had a semicircular shaped edge that was consistent with a leading edge of an airfoil. No pre-impact anomalies were found with the leading edge de-ice boots that were installed on both wings, vertical and horizontal stabilizers, and wing struts. Federal Aviation Regulations state that all ice contimination shall be removed prior to flight. The Cessna 208B Pilot Operating Handbook indicates that continued flight into known icing conditions must be avoided.
Probable cause
The pilot not removing the ice contamination from the airplane prior to departure and the pilot intentionally flying into known severe icing conditions, resulting in the aircraft not being able to maintain altitude/clearance from the terrain. Factors to the accident included the icing conditions and the trees encountered during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA093
- Event ID
- 20020326X00397
- Case number
- CHI02FA093
- 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: e3938810817eac294a2d7149dc32ef551987478b5b6c96e7ffe9c92be2e76d65; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:06:12.190Z.