Alaska Flyers Helio H-295 accident
Helio H-295 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) to Kaktovic, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC09LA047
- 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
Helio H-295
- Aircraft type
- Helio H-295
- 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
- N295SC
- Operator
- Alaska Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, AKTo Kaktovic, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 on a Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations Part 135 passenger flight, and was landing on a snow-covered glacier surrounded by mountains. During the approach to the glacier, the pilot said she encountered a strong downdraft as the airplane passed a ridge line. The airplane descended below her anticipated approach path, and she initiated a go-around, but the airplane continued to descend, and landed hard, about 200 feet short of the intended touchdown point. During touchdown, the airplane’s right main landing gear axle broke, which pivoted the airplane to the right. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left side of the fuselage. In the pilot’s written statement to the NTSB, she reported that there were no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane. She indicated that the surface wind on the glacier itself was light and variable, in contrast to the downdraft she encountered. She said that during subsequent approaches to the same site, she has altered her landing approaches to minimize the exposure to downdrafts, and increased the approach altitude, which would allow for a go-around if required.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane after an in-flight encounter with a downdraft while landing in mountainous terrain, and her decision to fly at an altitude where such an encounter made a successful recovery unlikely.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC09LA047
- Event ID
- 20090520X95252
- Case number
- ANC09LA047
- 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: 4526bc6a5cd5a1ccb0818eb80d14f07c841d5f7ce6d84c4a0de5330a629b3898; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:07:19.073Z.