Yute Air Alaska Cessna 207 accident
Cessna 207 · Accident: undershoot during landing
From Mertarvik Airport (PAEW) to Chevak Airport (VAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC02LA066
- 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 207
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N7384U
- Operator
- Yute Air Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mertarvik Airport (PAEW), NEWTOK, AKTo Chevak Airport (VAK), Chevak, 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 › Distance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport certificated pilot was landing the airplane on a gravel-surfaced runway during an air taxi cargo flight. The pilot told the director of operations that the airplane encountered a downdraft during the landing approach. The airplane landed short of the runway threshold. Airport personnel at the airport reported the airplane collided with the lip of the runway. The nose landing gear assembly was torn off the airplane, and the left main landing gear was folded aft. In the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report (NTSB form 6120.1/2) submitted by the pilot, the pilot indicated the weather conditions as clear with light turbulence. He reported the wind was 290 degrees at 8 to 10 knots. The remarks section of the FAA's Airport Facility Directory/Alaska Supplement indicates the "runway is trough shaped, low in center and high at both ends. Caution: Strong crosswinds at this location."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain the proper touchdown point resulting in an undershoot, and subsequent collision with gravel terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC02LA066
- Event ID
- 20020712X01117
- Case number
- ANC02LA066
- 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: e038f06db9930a4028923067a34ed715abe4b88291703fdc6a13043f7764ad53; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:00:58.628Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N7384U; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, YAAA.