Inland Aviation Services Cessna 172 accident
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Tuluksak Airport (TLT) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA049
- 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 172
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N1453V
- Operator
- Inland Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tuluksak Airport (TLT), Tuluksak, AKTo Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/mush; Tree(s)
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated airline transport pilot was departing on a Title 14, CFR Part 135, on-demand air taxi passenger flight from a 2,461 foot-long slush and snow-covered gravel runway. The pilot reported that the airplane became airborne after using about two-thirds of the runway, but would not climb. Once the airplane passed over the departure end of the runway, it stalled and collided with a stand of trees and snow-covered terrain. The airplane sustained structural damage to the wings, fuselage, and horizontal stabilizer. The pilot said that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane. A postaccident investigation revealed that the estimated gross weight of the airplane at takeoff was about 2,485 pounds, or approximately 185 pounds in excess of the maximum takeoff gross weight of 2,300 pounds.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent stall/mush during takeoff-initial climb, which resulted in an in-flight collision with trees and terrain. Factors associated with the accident were the pilot's excessive loading of the airplane, his inadequate preflight planning, and a slush-covered runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA049
- Event ID
- 20060809X01131
- Case number
- ANC06LA049
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8651aac3d5ea4169eb9f172b64f244c4aca7ce25b6c8d3de8090899c00d4ec59; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:53:45.821Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N1453V; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, B7TC.