A Yute Commuter Service (YCS) plane landed on a frozen lake near Pilot Station last week. The National Transportation Safety Board said that it is not opening a formal investigation into the incident.
NTSB Alaska Chief Clint Johnson said that the safety board generally does not open investigations unless the airplane is damaged or if there are injuries to passengers. This incident had neither.
“So at this point, right now, we are closing our file on this one,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that the pilot landed on the lake as a precautionary measure due to a partial loss of power in the engine. He said that his team would follow up with YCS about that.
“To see what the cause or what the suspected cause was of the partial power loss. But like I said before, at this point right now we are not going to be conducting a formal investigation. It'll just be a follow up,” Johnson said.
YCS Director of Operations Terry Cratty said that the airline is still investigating what caused the engine to partially lose power. However, he said that a few days after the plane landed on the lake, a pilot was able to retrieve the plane and fly it back to Bethel without incident.
A Yute Commuter Service (YCS) airplane landed on a frozen lake near Pilot Station on January 7, possibly due to a partial loss of power to the engine. The airline is reporting no injuries and no damage to the plane.
The YCS Cessna 172 was heading from Bethel to Pilot Station mid-afternoon with the pilot and two passengers onboard.
YCS Director of Operations Terry Cratty said that the lake that the pilot landed on was a few miles away from Pilot Station, and was clear of snow because the windy weather had blown it all off recently. He declined to comment why the pilot landed there.
“All I can do is tell you everybody's safe and everything's okay. And the aircraft is unharmed and things are good,” Cratty said. “The aircraft was safely landed on the lake, and we had another aircraft go in and pick the people up and move them to their destination.”
Cratty said that the airline dispatched another plane from Bethel, which picked up the pilot, the passengers, and their luggage from the lake and transported them to Pilot Station. He declined to say whether the original plane was still on the lake near Pilot Station.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is looking into the incident. NTSB Alaska Chief Clint Johnson said that based on preliminary findings, the YCS pilot landed on the lake as a precautionary measure after a partial loss of power to the engine.
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