Alaska Air Group Flight 99
McDonnell Douglas MD-83 · Incident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid on approach
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06IA054
- 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
- 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
- Airline
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD-83
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-83
- 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
- N949AS
- Operator
- Alaska Air Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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 · VFR go-around
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
- Flightcrew › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A McDonnell Douglas MD-83 airplane sustained minor damage to the right wingtip while landing, following an unstabilized approach. The captain reported that the first officer was initially flying a VOR approach to runway 19R, which requires a left turn to align the airplane with the runway centerline before touchdown. During the initial part of the approach, intermittent instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) prevailed, but as the approach continued, the airplane descended below the scattered cloud deck, and entered visual meteorological conditions. The captain said that the first officer asked if he could continue the VOR approach to runway 19R for proficiency proposes, and the captain agreed. As the airplane continued towards the airport, the captain noticed that the precision approach path indicator lights for runway 19L appeared to be on full bright. The captain's written statement to the NTSB stated, in part: "The first officer initially saw runway 19L while still above the MDA [minimum descent altitude] and 3 miles from the field. I pointed out runway 19R. While maneuvering to line up on the runway, we overshot." As the airplane passed over the approach end of the runway, it was to the left of the runway centerline, and the first officer applied right aileron control to correct the misalignment. The captain then gave the order to go-around, and takeoff engine power was applied, but the airplane's descent continued, and the right wing struck the runway as the main landing gear wheels contacted the runway. There were no preincident mechanical anomalies reported by the operator or flightcrew.
Probable cause
The flightcrew's delayed go-around during an unstabilized approach to land, which resulted in dragging a wingtip on the runway during the go-around. A factor associated with the incident was the flightcrew's unstabilized approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06IA054
- Event ID
- 20060522X00596
- Case number
- ANC06IA054
- 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: ae9144cf1764bbaad323a6ed5d260f55f49007ed8c822aa13d5ca36b503c12cf; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:53:12.066Z.