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Security Aviation Flight 45

20 Aug 2026 · Near Cape Newenham LRRS Airport, Alaska, United States

N128EZ Cessna 441 · Crashed on approach in poor visibility; under investigation

From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (PANC) to Cape Newenham LRRS Airport (EHM)

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Event

NTSB case
WPR26FA309
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
Ongoing
Event fatalities
8 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
8
Survivors
0
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
0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
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

Cessna 441

Flight
SVX45
Aircraft type
Cessna 441
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
N128EZ
Operator
N128EZ
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (PANC), Anchorage, AKTo Cape Newenham LRRS Airport (EHM)
Aircraft age
About 47 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 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
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
Unknown or undetermined
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

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

From the Wikipedia article

On August 20, 2026, Security Aviation Flight 45, a Cessna 441 Conquest II operating a charter passenger flight in Alaska from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to Cape Newenham LRRS Airport, crashed on approach to its destination. All eight people on board were killed. Weather was reported to be poor at the airport at the time of the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board has started an investigation into the crash.

Flight

The airplane took off from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport at 9:12 am local time headed to Cape Newenham LRRS Airport for a charter flight. The climb and cruise parts of the flight went as planned, until, as the aircraft neared its destination airport, the pilots received a communication that stated that weather conditions at Cape Newenham had worsened. The crew decided to enter a holding pattern to wait for the weather to get better, they continued this manouver for twenty minutes. After completing the third circuit the airplane entered the northern approach pattern to the airport and started its descent phase using an instrument approach procedure. During this approach the visibility diminished again so the pilot in command called for a go around and later started a second landing attempt. At around 12 pm local time Flight 45 impacted terrain on a steep 600 meters high mountain west of the airport. All eight people on board were killed and the plane was completely destroyed on impact. The Alaskan Command coordinated the search and rescue operations that reached the crash site. Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawks and Lockheed HC-130 Hercules were deployed in the recovery operations.

Investigation and cause

Investigation

The National Transportation Safety Board announced that it had launched an investigation into the accidents, and that six of its investigators are headed to the crash site, and will reach it in the following days, as soon as the weather conditions get better. It is being planned to recover the wreckage, that is said to be totally destroyed by both the impact and a post-crash fire, by helicopter to transport it in another place to facilitate the work of the investigators. Security Aviation, the airline involved, stated that it's cooperating with the authorities as part of the investigative procedures. On August 25, the NTSB team reached the crash site and started the recovery of the airplane's wreckage. The agency's regional officer Clint Johnson published photos of the wreckage, and described it as "highly fragmented" due to an high speed impact. The wrecakge will be recovered by helicopter and then transported to Cape Newenham LRRS Airport, where it will be picked up by a cargo plane and brought to the NTSB offices in Anchorage.

The weather conditions at the airport at the time of the accident were very poor and rapidly deteriorating, with visibility descending from 16 kilometers to under 400 meters in about 15 minutes and a cloud overcast at an height of 60 meters.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Security Aviation Flight 45” (revision 1375421650, 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

Sources

Wikipedia article: Security Aviation Flight 45
Article
Security Aviation Flight 45
Revision
1375421650 · 2026-09-17 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q141246366
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record WPR26FA309
Event ID
20260820203636
Case number
WPR26FA309
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Security Aviation Flight 45" (page 84029650, revision 1375421650); merged with NTSB case WPR26FA309 (events / aircraft)
Date
NTSB record WPR26FA309: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record WPR26FA309
Map position
NTSB record WPR26FA309: NTSB API eventLatitude/eventLongitude
Aircraft, operator and route
NTSB record WPR26FA309: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
NTSB record WPR26FA309: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
Fatalities
NTSB record WPR26FA309: NTSB API totalFatal
Ground fatalities
NTSB record WPR26FA309: events.inj_f_grnd
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Security Aviation Flight 45" and NTSB case WPR26FA309, 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.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates, departure, year built, aircraft category, damage. 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.