Cape Smythe Air Service Short BROS. SC7 SERIES 3 SC7 SERIES incident
Short BROS. SC7 SERIES 3 SC7 SERIES · Incident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Point Hope Airport (PHO) to Wiley Post Will Rogers Memorial Airport (BRW)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC83IA010
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 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
Short BROS. SC7 SERIES 3 SC7 SERIES
- Aircraft type
- Short Bros SC7
- 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
- N50DA
- Operator
- Cape Smythe Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Point Hope Airport (PHO), Point Hope, AKTo Wiley Post Will Rogers Memorial Airport (BRW), BARROW, 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
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS ON A ROUND TRIP FLIGHT FROM BARROW, AK TO POINT HOPE, AK AND RETURN. AFTER LANDING AT POINT HOPE, THERE WAS A 20 MIN DELAY WHILE WAITING FOR THE GROUND CREW. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE RAN THE ENGINES FOR SOME 10 MIN OR SO DUE TO THE HIGH WINDS AND COLD. HE STATED THAT THE WIND WAS AVERAGING ABOUT 45 KTS AND WAS TOO STRONG TO MAINTAIN CONTROL ON TOP OF THE AIRCRAFT FOR REFUELING. THE PILOT CALCULATED THAT HE HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH FUEL TO RETURN TO BARROW. WHILE RETURNING, HE FLEW PAST TWO POSSIBLE REFUEL POINTS AND A THIRD PLACE WHERE HE COULD HAVE LANDED. WHILE OVER WATER NEAR HIS DESTINATION, THE LEFT ENGINE FLAMED OUT AND THE PILOT INCORRECTLY SHUT DOWN THE RIGHT ENGINE. HE WAS ABLE TO RESTART THE RIGHT ENGINE, BUT IT SOON FLAMED OUT ALSO. A SUCCESSFUL FORCED LANDING WAS THEN MADE ON THE TUNDRA. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE ENGINE FLAMED OUT DUE TO LACK OF FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC83IA010
- Event ID
- 20020917X04225
- Case number
- ANC83IA010
- 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: 9072ac58888ef69c367e905bb401f02ff9fc0868309285125cb6346ed29dab8b; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:05:21.140Z.