Iliamna Air Taxi Cessna 207 accident
Cessna 207 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Kokhanok Airport (9K2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18LA064
- 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
Cessna 207
- 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
- N7379U
- Operator
- Iliamna Air Taxi
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Kokhanok Airport (9K2), Kokhanok, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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 power plant
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 shortly after takeoff, as he began to configure the airplane for cruise flight, the engine began to run rough and lose power, and he elected to immediately return to the airport. The engine subsequently lost total power and the pilot performed a forced landing on tundra-covered terrain, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage. Examination revealed that the No. 2 piston was eroded on the bottom side, and a hole was burned through. The No. 2 piston and cylinder head were mechanically damaged by loose piston ring debris. Closer examination of the No. 2 cylinder head revealed re-solidified molten metal around the bottom Heli-Coil tang notch. All damage discovered was consistent with a pre-ignition/detonation event; however, the cause of the pre-ignition and/or detonation could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to detonation/preignition damage of the No. 2 cylinder and piston for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18LA064
- Event ID
- 20180810X31115
- Case number
- ANC18LA064
- 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, cause areas. 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: 371b710b8e602b60470efce93c3c1e78b594c60514710aac51b9831cc8484d00; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:04:29.157Z.