Northern Air Cargo Flight 33
Douglas DC-6A · Loss of control
From Emmonak Airport (ENM) to Aniak Airport (ANI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96FA102
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-6A
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-6
- 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
- N313RS
- Operator
- Northern Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Emmonak Airport (ENM), Emmonak, AKTo Aniak Airport (ANI), Aniak, AK
- 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
- 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
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, master rod › Corroded
- Engine assembly, master rod › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, master rod › Fatigue
- Engine compartment › Fire
- Flightcrew › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Wing › Fire
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Northern Air Cargo Flight 33 was a domestic cargo flight of Northern Air Cargo from Emmonak to Aniak, on which on 20 July 1996 a Douglas DC-6A crashed while attempting an emergency landing at Russian Mission Airport. There were no survivors among the four people on board.
Course of the flight
The Douglas DC-6A took off from Emmonak at 14:10 local time (00:10 CET). At 14:55 local time (00:55 CET) engine No. 3 (right inboard) caught fire and the fire handles were pulled. The captain ordered the engine's propeller to be feathered. The co-pilot confirmed that the propeller was feathered, but that a fire was still being indicated, which is why the captain decided to make an emergency landing at Holy Cross Airport. While the captain was preparing the landing, the co-pilot reported that the fire was now beginning to go out after all. Consequently the captain now wanted to head for his scheduled destination again. At 14:59, however, the fire alarm sounded again and smoke began to flow into the cockpit. The captain now tried to head for the airport at Russian Mission. While turning onto final approach, the right wing broke and folded upwards. The aircraft rolled to the right and crashed vertically before reaching the airport.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation found that the fire had been caused by a technical defect and that the crew had not responded to it appropriately. They activated the fire extinguishing system before the propeller was feathered, which made it less effective.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Northern-Air-Cargo-Flug 33” (revision 237188134, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The cargo flight was en route, when a fire erupted in or near the #3 engine. During subsequent emergency procedures, the flight crew pulled the fire handle first. Later, they feathered the #3 engine. The fire did not extinguish. During an attempt to land at a rural, intermediate airstrip, while the airplane was in the traffic pattern, witnesses saw fire coming from the area of the #3 engine. They stated the right wing buckled upward, and the airplane crashed. Examination of the wreckage revealed a failure of the master rod in the front bank of cylinders of the #3 engine. Metallurgical tests revealed a crack in the top of the master rod head, which had resulted from corrosion pits. The side of the master rod head was measured and found to be out of round. The master rod shank also fractured due to fatigue. The operator's training procedures and the Douglas Aircraft emergency checklist procedures, required that the engine's propeller be feathered first, and then the fire extinguishing system to be activated. According to information derived from the airplane's cockpit voice recorder, the flight crew reversed that order. The effectiveness of the fire suppression system is diminished if the propeller is not feathered first.
Probable cause
fatigue failure of the master connecting rod, which originated from corrosion pitting, subsequently compromised the engine crankcase, and resulted in a fire; and failure of the flight crew to follow emergency procedures by pulling the fire handle before feathering the propeller, which diminished the effectiveness of the fire suppression system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Northern-Air-Cargo-Flug 33
- Article
- Northern-Air-Cargo-Flug 33
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 237188134 · 2023-09-10 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q90500317
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ANC96FA102
- Event ID
- 20001208X06132
- Case number
- ANC96FA102
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Northern-Air-Cargo-Flug 33" (page 11240228, revision 237188134), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case ANC96FA102 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record ANC96FA102: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ANC96FA102
- Map position
- NTSB record ANC96FA102: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record ANC96FA102: 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 ANC96FA102: operated under Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record ANC96FA102: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record ANC96FA102: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Northern Air Cargo Flight 33" and NTSB case ANC96FA102, 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. 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.