ANC10LA065 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAAQ) to Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAAQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC10LA065
- 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 170B
- 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
- N4590C
- Operator
- Akers David W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAAQ), Palmer, AKTo Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAAQ), Palmer, 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 › Experience/knowledge
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was maneuvering the airplane following a creek and observed an airstrip below. He decided he would make a practice approach to the airstrip, with no intention of landing. On the second approach, upon reaching the threshold of the landing area, he initiated a climb. After flying the length of the airstrip, the airplane started to descend. The pilot opined that the airplane had entered a downdraft and in response applied full engine power. The airplane continued to descend and collided with rising terrain near the end of the airstrip. The airplane sustained structural damage to its wings and fuselage.
The airplane was equipped with a required emergency locator transmitter (ELT), however, it was an older generation ELT that transmitted only on 121.5 megahertz, not the newer, digital version that transmits on 406 megahertz. As of February 2009, the search and rescue satellites that receive ELT signals no longer had the capability to receive the older analog 121.5 megahertz ELTs. The 406 megahertz ELTs are received within seconds of activation, and rescuers are notified within minutes of the accident location. In this accident, the pilot and passenger were missing for 2 days and a search was initiated. They were able to walk to a trail, despite serious injuries, where a group of all terrain vehicle riders assisted them.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to make a low-altitude pass over a remote airstrip toward rising terrain in weather conducive to downdrafts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC10LA065
- Event ID
- 20100724X22559
- Case number
- ANC10LA065
- 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: 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 2010-07-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 432ed31d8e4d0336b34ab60cc00c1099a5cec22461dd3cacfef53166faa8de61; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:44:58.769Z.