ANC07CA043 · Cessna 170
Cessna 170 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Birchwood Airport (BCV) to Anchorage, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC07CA043
- 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 170
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N3412D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birchwood Airport (BCV), Birchwood, AKTo Anchorage, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 object
- 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
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- 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 commercial certificated pilot was delivering fuel under Title 14, CFR Part 91, to an airplane that made an emergency landing at an off airport site. The disabled airplane was blocking a major portion of the landing area. The accident pilot decided to land long, past the disabled airplane. In a written statement to the NTSB, the pilot wrote that during final approach, about 15-20 feet above the overgrown landing site, the airplane struck a tree with the left wing. He said the airplane touched down hard, and spun to the left, coming to rest with the right wing in high brush. He wrote that flying over the landing area, or asking more questions of the pilot on the ground prior to landing, would have been prudent. The right wing leading edge, aileron, elevator, and the left leading edge were damaged during the accident. According to the pilot, there were no known mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from trees while landing, and his selection of an unsuitable landing site, which resulted in an in-flight collision with a tree and an on-ground encounter with brush.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC07CA043
- Event ID
- 20070711X00902
- Case number
- ANC07CA043
- 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: 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 2007-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dc8ddaa0f47626b2257a18cb8fdb79c05a52a461fe5c0262dcc7340a38450adf; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:45:45.706Z.