ANC12CA067 · Cessna 207A
Grant Aviation Cessna 207A · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Kotlik Airport (PFKO) to Emmonak Airport (PAEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC12CA067
- 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 207A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N2162C
- Operator
- Grant Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kotlik Airport (PFKO), Kotlik, AKTo Emmonak Airport (PAEM), Emmonak, 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 › 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 pilot reported that he was following a river in level cruise flight at 200 feet above the water. While adjusting the engine power, his attention was temporarily distracted, and the airplane descended and struck the surface of the water. After the collision, the pilot climbed the airplane to 500 feet above ground level and proceeded directly to the nearest airport. Upon landing, the propeller and nose of the airplane struck the ground. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the nose wheel was torn from the airplane during the collision with the water. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the engine firewall and fuselage. The pilot stated that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude/clearance from terrain during cruise flight at low altitude, which resulted in an in-flight collision with water. A contributing factor was the pilot’s diverted attention to adjust the engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC12CA067
- Event ID
- 20120706X05542
- Case number
- ANC12CA067
- 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: 62853e8c4a6c5bccdbb68bfcf11da3ec85d228e619d4f564c9a4fa95ec8b9004; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:46:44.267Z.