ANC20CA032 · Cessna 172 N
Flight Safety Alaska Cessna 172 N · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Big Lake Airport (BGQ) to Merrill Field (MRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC20CA032
- 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 172 N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N52168
- Operator
- Flight Safety Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Lake Airport (BGQ), Big Lake, AKTo Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 control on ground
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was attempting to take off from a snow-covered runway and that, during the first attempt, the airplane failed to generate enough airspeed, so he aborted the takeoff and exited the runway. On his second attempt, he chose to begin the takeoff roll with a high-speed taxi on a taxiway before turning 90° to enter the runway. Just before entering the runway, the airplane hit a dip in the taxiway, and the airplane veered left and impacted a snow berm, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported several ways that the accident could have been prevented, including parking the airplane and waiting for a snowplow to clear the runway. In addition, he indicated that he was fatigued and that his judgment and decision-making abilities were compromised.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to initiate the takeoff roll from a snow-covered taxiway, which resulted in a loss of directional control, runway excursion, and impact with a snow berm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC20CA032
- Event ID
- 20200312X95752
- Case number
- ANC20CA032
- 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 2020-03-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4424394b724522bf84aa7e3ff27bd8b4e910b9cad2ddf610dea9ad8e040b56ec; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:18:36.384Z.