ANC10CA060 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) en route
From PEDF · Elmendorf AFB, AK to PEDF · Elemdorf AFB, AK
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC10CA060
- 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 172N
- 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
- N6594D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From PEDF · Elmendorf AFB, AKTo PEDF · Elemdorf AFB, 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he had flown over the Knik Glacier before, but he had been solo at the time and this was his first time with passengers. He approached the glacier at 1,500 feet mean sea level (msl) and initiated a climb. He noticed that the airplane's performance was degraded compared to his previous crossings, and he attributed it to the extra weight of his two passengers; however, he believed he would still make it over the glacier. At the 8,000 feet msl he noticed that he was much closer to the glacier than he expected and decided to turn back. He started a right turn, but the airplane was too low and slow and began to stall. First the right wing tip hit the snow, then the left wing tip hit before the the airplane nosed into the snow and over. The pilot and passengers egressed from the inverted airplane and were rescued about an hour later.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to fly towards rising terrain that exceeded the climb capability of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC10CA060
- Event ID
- 20100713X23333
- Case number
- ANC10CA060
- 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. 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: 7e382fe0729a6206dafe506366baac4008b84c78bbb9c0235df7dae36d7a4a0d; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:41:20.168Z.