Wien Air Alaska Flight 99
Fairchild F-27B · Controlled flight into terrain in fog, pilot error
From Nome Airport (OME) to Gambell Airport (GAM)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 10 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 32
- Survivors
- 22
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 22
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Fairchild F-27B
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild F-27
- 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
- N4904
- Operator
- Wien Air Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nome Airport (OME)To Gambell Airport (GAM)
- 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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 · IFR missed 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
- Controlled collision with ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Improper IFR operation
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Wien Air Alaska Flight 99 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight in Alaska to St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. On approach to Gambell on 30 August 1975, it crashed into Sevuokuk Mountain, east of the airport's runway. Of the 32 on board, ten were killed, including the captain and first officer. The Fairchild F-27B aircraft was operated by Wien Air Alaska.
Flight
Flight 99 originated in Nome on Saturday, August 30, 1975, bound for Savoonga and Gambell. Captain William C. Arant (39), who had 6,607 flying hours prior to the journey, and First Officer Gerald W. Schaefer (28) who had 2,738 flight hours were on board. The flight from Nome to Savoonga was uneventful, and the plane departed Savoonga for Gambell at 1:27 pm Bering daylight time. As Gambell did not have a control tower, the Wien agent at Gambell, upon hearing the plane radio its departure from Savoonga, turned on the non-directional beacon at Gambell to aid the flight's crew in navigation.
Fog was prevalent in the Gambell area, and the crew discussed strategies to land at the airport. After several missed approaches, the plane flew north over the community, and turned east, and then south to make one final pass. The plane passed over Troutman Lake east of Gambell, and turned south, before impacting Sevuokuk Mountain at an elevation of 424 ft.
After impact, the plane broke apart and was propelled up the mountain approximately 132 ft, coming to rest inverted. A fire broke out, and the residents of the village came to aid, attempting to put the fire out with hand-held extinguishers. All but one of the injured passengers were able to escape the wreckage. Most of the injured or killed passengers were natives of Nome, Gambell, or Savoonga.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The cause of the crash, according to the NTSB, was improper IFR (Instrument flight rules) operation, failing to adhere to instrument approach procedures. The airplane collided with a mountain on a missed approach to landing, after multiple missed approaches. The weather at the airport was unsafe for landing, with a low ceiling and sea fog.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Wien Air Alaska Flight 99” (revision 1339309559, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
COLLIDED WITH MTN WHILE BELOW MDA. WX WAS BELOW APPROACH MINIMUMS. APT ROTATING BCN O/S.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Wien Air Alaska Flight 99
- Article
- Wien Air Alaska Flight 99
- Revision
- 1339309559 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7999114
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19750830P057008
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Wien Air Alaska Flight 99" (page 24993288, revision 1339309559); merged with NTSB case NTSB19750830P057008 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19750830P057008: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19750830P057008
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19750830P057008: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19750830P057008: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19750830P057008: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19750830P057008: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Wien Air Alaska Flight 99" and NTSB case NTSB19750830P057008, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.