2018 Cessna 208B crash in the Pacific Ocean
CGG Aviation Australia Cessna 208B Supervan 900 · The 2018 Cessna 208B crash in the Pacific Ocean occurred on 27 September 2018
From Jandakot Airport, Australia to Greenwood–Leflore Airport, Mississippi, United States
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18WA078
- 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 · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cessna 208B Supervan 900
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- VH-FAY
- Operator
- CGG Aviation Australia
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Jandakot Airport, AustraliaTo Greenwood–Leflore Airport, Mississippi, United States
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Physical
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The 2018 Cessna 208B crash in the Pacific Ocean occurred on 27 September 2018. On that day, a Cessna 208B Supervan 900, which was being used for a ferry flight from Saipan Airport in the Northern Mariana Islands to New Chitose Airport in Japan, crashed into the sea after the pilot had lost consciousness and the aircraft continued flying with the autopilot engaged until the fuel was exhausted. The pilot was killed in the crash.
Accident sequence
The aircraft took off from Jandakot on 15 September and flew via Alice Springs, Weipa, Horn Island and Guam to Saipan, where the pilot discovered damage to the heating mat of the de-icing system located on the wing. A technician from the company travelled to Saipan to replace the heating mat. The aircraft's onward flight was thereby delayed by more than a week. The aircraft took off at 7:00 Japan time on 27 September 2018 for the onward flight to New Chitose, with the flight time there expected to be about nine hours. The aircraft's climb ended at flight level 220. At 10:23 the pilot reported his position to air traffic control as scheduled. The next scheduled position report at 11:44 did not come. All attempts by air traffic control in Tokyo to establish radio contact with the aircraft were unsuccessful. Eventually, two McDonnell F-4 fighter aircraft of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force were dispatched to check on the aircraft. The fighter pilots reached it at around 14:50, but were unable to look into the cockpit of the Cessna to see whether the pilot was sitting in his seat or whether there were indications that he was incapacitated. About 30 minutes later, the fighter pilots observed the Cessna descending through the clouds towards the sea and rapidly losing altitude. At 15:28 the aircraft disappeared from radar about 120 kilometres east of Sendai. Two hours after its disappearance from radar, the search teams were able to recover only a cargo door from the aircraft; both the captain and the rest of the aircraft were never found.
Investigation and cause
Cause
After the accident, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. Owing to these circumstances, the reason for the capacity to act could not be determined with absolute certainty. Two scenarios came into consideration for the investigators:
Incapacitation of the pilot as a result of a medical emergency, such as a heart attack
Incapacitation of the pilot as a result of hypoxia
The investigators found that, although they could not rule out a medical emergency, the pilot had flown the aircraft, which was not equipped with a pressurised cabin, alone and without using a suitable oxygen supply system. At altitudes of more than 10,000 feet, hypoxia can easily occur on board aircraft without a pressurised cabin, and particularly at altitudes of more than 18,000 feet it can also set in rapidly and unnoticed by those affected. The pilot had not been adequately trained to recognise the signs of incipient hypoxia at an early stage. He had used a nasal oxygen cannula which had been connected to a pulse oximeter in order to check his blood oxygen saturation. On previous flights, the pilot had been in the habit of using the device only irregularly. When the aircraft had been parked in Saipan, no evidence could be found that the Cessna's oxygen mask had previously been used, although the flight on the previous legs had in part been conducted at altitudes of more than 18,000 feet. The crash had occurred because the fuel supply in one of the two fuel tanks had been exhausted and the pilot, owing to his capacity to act, had not been able to switch the tank selector valve to the other fuel tank.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Absturz einer Cessna 208B im Pazifischen Ozean 2018” (revision 239375372, 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
On September 27, 2018, at 0626 universal coordinated time, a Cessna 208B airplane, VH-FAY, disappeared from radar during cruise flight over international waters, about 185Km northeast of Narita International Airport. Parts from the destroyed airplane were located and recovered from the ocean. The pilot was fatally injured. The airplane had departed Saipan Northern Mariana Islands, destined for Sapporo Japan.
The investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Australia. This report is for information purposes only and contains only information released by the Government of Australia. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB)
P.O. Box 967, Civic Square
Canberra A.C.T. 2608
Australia
Tel: +612 6274 6054
Fax: +612 6274 6434
www.atsb.gov.au
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Absturz einer Cessna 208B im Pazifischen Ozean 2018
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 239375372 · 2023-11-22 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q109568706
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ANC18WA078
- Event ID
- 20181004X25929
- Case number
- ANC18WA078
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Absturz einer Cessna 208B im Pazifischen Ozean 2018" (page 11949038, revision 239375372), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case ANC18WA078 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record ANC18WA078
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2018 Cessna 208B crash in the Pacific Ocean" and NTSB case ANC18WA078, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.