ANC09CA020 · Beech 65-A90-1
Missionary Aviation Repair Center Beech 65-A90-1 · Accident: loss of visual reference during landing
From Wasilla Airport (PAWS) to Soldotna Airport (PASX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC09CA020
- 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
Beech 65-A90-1
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 65
- 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
- N418SP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wasilla Airport (PAWS), Wasilla, AKTo Soldotna Airport (PASX), Soldotna, 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
- Landing
- Defining eventThe 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 visual reference
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
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 pilot was making a personal cross-country flight under Title 14, CFR Part 91. The pilot said when he arrived at the destination airport there was 3-4 inches of new snow, and that the overcast and low light condition made everything look gray. He said the visual approach slope indicator (VASI) lights were inoperative, and the appropriate notice to airman (NOTAM) was issued. He said he turned on the runway lights, identified what he thought was the runway surface, and lined up the runway edge lights on his left. After the airplane touched down he said he realized that he landed to the right of the runway surface, with the right side runway edge lights on his left. The pilot said the airplane settled into deep snow, and impacted a snowbank, collapsing the landing gear. In a written statement the pilot wrote that given the snow and light conditions, using the wide area augmentation system (WAAS) instrument flight rules (IFR) approach would have aligned the airplane with the runway surface. The pilot said there were no known mechanical problems with the airplane prior to the accident. The airplane sustained structural fuselage damage during the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's misidentification of the runway surface during landing. Contributing to the accident were the snow-covered terrain, and low-light conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC09CA020
- Event ID
- 20090216X03720
- Case number
- ANC09CA020
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 43eb7b85b3db1f1bb190f502ca5c65483c9ae18ada8444ce59a8fa488acc81b4; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:45:18.594Z.