ANC82DAA19 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ) to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC82DAA19
- 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
- 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
- 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 A185F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N60844
- Operator
- David L. Chauvin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), Kotzebue, AKTo Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Kotzebue, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
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
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC82DAA19
- Event ID
- 20020917X04201
- Case number
- ANC82DAA19
- 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: e62ec8e05e714793f5fad145c4e64561be96c6193225807f9837554ae4b878a2; retrieved 2026-09-24T00:55:12.853Z.