ANC04LA035 · Cessna 180H
Cessna 180H · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Talkeetna, AK to Finger Lake Seaplane Base (99Z)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04LA035
- 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 180H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N2472F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talkeetna, AKTo Finger Lake Seaplane Base (99Z), Palmer, 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
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 departing from a snow-covered area on a remote glacier in a ski-equipped airplane. During the downhill takeoff from the glacier, the pilot said that the left main landing gear ski collided with snow-covered terrain just after the airplane became airborne, and the left main landing gear strut was torn off the fuselage. During the subsequent emergency landing on the snow, the airplane received additional damage to the left wing and fuselage. The pilot said the weather conditions were clear, and the visibility was unrestricted. An emergency locator transmitter (ELT) signal was received by search and rescue personnel, and the airplane's occupants were picked up by a rescue helicopter. In the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report (NTSB Form 6120.1) submitted by the pilot, the pilot indicated that the landing/takeoff area had 6 to 8 feet high snow drifts, but the area was still being used by local ski-equipped aircraft.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff, which resulted in a collision with a snow drift during takeoff/initial climb. Factors contributing to the accident were the snow-covered and uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04LA035
- Event ID
- 20040325X00368
- Case number
- ANC04LA035
- 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: 5dc84e52d43fbb97c4268d5a1ac24b73d62c3f95dd3a1dd0158835c79d287190; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:49:49.001Z.