Lake Clark Air Beech 99 UNDESIGNAT accident
Beech 99 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: hard landing
From Dillingham Airport (DLG) to Pilot Point Airport (PNP)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA187
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 99 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 99
- 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
- N31TN
- Operator
- Lake Clark Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dillingham Airport (DLG), Dillingham, AKTo Pilot Point Airport (PNP), PILOT POINT, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after exiting instrument meteorological conditions during a circling approach, he was "a little above" the normal glidepath; as the airplane crossed the approach end of the runway, the airplane began to sink rapidly and drift to the left. He added power to initiate a go-around, but the airplane continued to sink and landed with the left main landing gear off the left side of the runway. As the airplane became airborne again, he attempted to retract the landing gear, "but the handle was locked in place." He noticed that the left and right main landing gear extension lights were illuminated, but the nose landing gear light was not. The pilot noticed a positive rate of climb and decided to fly to an alternate airport.
The pilot reported that, while en route to the alternate airport, a passenger reported that they smelled smoke, so he turned off electrical equipment. A pilot-rated passenger assisted with circuit breaker troubleshooting before turning on the battery again for communications. He instructed the pilot-rated passenger to visually examine the landing gear; the passenger reported that the left main landing gear was extended without damage and the right main landing gear was "bent back," with damage to the right flap with fuel leaking from the wing.
After contacting the alternate airport's tower, the pilot reported that he declared an emergency and provided a safety brief to the passengers. He added that, at the alternate airport, he performed an instrument landing system approach, and over the approach end of the runway, he reduced power, feathered the propellers, and moved both fuel levers to fuel cutoff. During landing, the right main landing gear collapsed, the right wing settled onto the runway, and the airplane began to pull to the right. The pilot added left rudder to maintain the runway centerline and the airplane came to rest on the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain an adequate approach path and runway centerline during the initial landing, which resulted in a hard landing to the left of the runway and damage to the landing gear and wing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA187
- Event ID
- 20180329X95659
- Case number
- GAA18CA187
- 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: 8c62c27613477ccc7c7a9589f3a5ecd0a4a8c27dcdd37d3430a78c4ca9e4cc63; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:44:51.145Z.