Alaska Central Express Beech 1900C accident
Beech 1900C · Accident on approach
From Juneau International Airport (PAJN) to Juneau International Airport (PAJN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC11LA004
- 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
Beech 1900C
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N111AX
- Operator
- Alaska Central Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juneau International Airport (PAJN), Juneau, AKTo Juneau International Airport (PAJN), Juneau, 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The captain, who was the non-flying pilot, reported that he altered their course to avoid thunderstorm activity. Once clear of the thunderstorms, they flew direct to the initial instrument approach fix. During the instrument approach to land, the flight crew saw a build up of static electricity, known as St. Elmo's fire, near the nose of the airplane. The first officer reported that the light from the static electricity was very bright, and he decided to keep his eyes focused on the instruments. Shortly thereafter, lightning struck the nose of the airplane and the associated flash temporarily blinded the captain. The first officer continued to fly the approach without difficulty. Once the captain regained his sight, he took the flight controls and completed the landing. During a postaccident inspection of the airplane, the flight crew discovered substantial damage to the right elevator.
Probable cause
A lightning strike which resulted in substantial damage to the elevator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC11LA004
- Event ID
- 20101019X50439
- Case number
- ANC11LA004
- 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: d2734be6aa196d40d29a6001003de46868d0e3c72e50b99da6de48956e912cf5; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:29:44.599Z.