planeandpilotmag.com 71lights a year. More than two-thirds its destinations could
not support Part 135 IFR operations.
Hageland pilots typically worked 15 days followed by 15
days of. When on duty, each pilot normally had a 14-hour
duty day. A pilot normally had 8 hours maximum light
time, but that could be expanded to 10 hours if a second-
in-command was along.
Hageland required that day VFR lights be lown no lower
than 500 feet AGL and follow the shortest safe route or as
assigned by air traic control. According to Hageland’s
chief pilot and a safety pilot who gave testimony to the
NTSB, while the company encouraged pilots to ly at higher
altitudes, lights below 1,000 feet AGL took place all the
time, especially when there was a low ceiling but visibility
was “really good.”
Flight 3153 consisted of ive scheduled segments, and the
accident occurred during the third segment. Before the irst
segment, the pilot-in-command and the airline’s operational
control agent assigned to the light reviewed the available
weather information and completed a risk assessment
that identiied no hazards requiring management-level
approval to proceed.
he irst segment departed Bethel Airport, Bethel, Alaska,
about 9:27 a.m., and arrived at PATG at 10:29. he second
segment departed PATG at 10:44 and arrived at Quinhagak
Airport (PAQH), Quinhagak, Alaska, at 11:25. he light’s
altitude for the second segment was about 4,500 feet MSL.
While at PAQH, the crewmembers were on the ground for
about 8 minutes. hey unloaded cargo, boarded the pas-
senger, and departed on the third segment for PATG.
According to light tracking data from a commercial
source, the accident light proceeded southeast along a
generally direct route toward PATG at about 1,000 feet MSL.
he airplane’s last recorded location, at 11:53, was about
19 nm northwest of PATG at an altitude of 1,043 feet MSL.
A second Hageland light crew in a Cessna 208B departed
PAQH about 2 minutes after the accident light. According
to commercial and ADS-B data, they started out lying the
same route taken by the accident airplane. At 11:56, as
the second light approached the mountainous terrain, itchanged heading more toward the south, which allowed it
to remain over lower terrain than did the accident light.
According to the safety pilot on the second light, they
decided to change course to avoid clouds and follow a route
that looked clearer. he pilot-in-command said he changed
course when he saw valley fog and the potential for rain. he
safety pilot stated that the clouds over the route the accident
light took were changing. he pilot-in-command said he did
not see the accident airplane while in the mountains and
could not recall hearing any speciic radio communications
from the accident pilot.
When the second airplane arrived at PATG at about
12:16, the pilots noted that the irst airplane was not there.
About 12:14, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center
(AFRCC) notiied Hageland’s director of operations that
about 6 minutes earlier it received a 406MHz emergency
locator transmitter (ELT) signal from the accident airplane.
At about 12:31, the pilots of the irst company airplane that
had landed at PATG took of in search of the accident air-
plane. Clouds obscured the mountain from which the ELT
signal was coming, and they couldn’t spot the wreckage.
At about 2:30 p.m., an Alaska State Troopers helicopter
lew in from Dillingham and started to search. By about 4:30,
the weather had lifted suiciently for the troopers to spot
the wreckage. Other troopers were able to get there on the
ground about an hour later.
he initial impact point contained scrape marks and
pieces of the airplane’s belly cargo pod. hey were at an eleva-
tion of about 2,300 feet MSL on the northwest side of a steep,
rock-covered ridge about 9 nm southeast of the airplane’s
last position shown by the commercial tracking service.
he main wreckage was located on the southeast side
of the ridge. It was at an elevation of about 1,500 feet,
and the right wing was found about 200 feet below the
main wreckage.
he engine was separated from the airframe and showed
severe impact damage. Disassembly provided evidence that
it was producing power at impact and the propeller showed
evidence it was turning under power at impact.
he vertical speed indicator (VSI) from the left side ofIn these photos of tragic crashes, the conditions are different than they surely were when the accidents happened. CFIT accidents occur overwhelmingly in poor
visibility and dark of night and, as the name says, the planes are flown under control, implying the pilots had lost situational awareness.