The NTSB has released the factual report for the Feb. 6, 2020, crash of Yute Commuter Service Flight 1002, which killed all five on board. While the NTSB has yet to issue a probable cause, the factual report implies that poor visibility played a role in the single-engine Piper PA-32R hitting terrain 12 miles west of Tuntutuliak, Alaska.
Yute is a VFR-only Part 135 commuter airline based in Bethel, Alaska. According to the report, which was accompanied by a docket including 264 pages of interviews with company personnel and a detailed weather study, Flight 1002 departed Bethel at 10:40 a.m. under special VFR for the villages of Kipnuk and Chefornak. The forecast cited IFR conditions “with occasional visibility below three miles in light snow and mist.”
The accident occurred at about 11:10 a.m.—30 minutes after departure. At 10:43 a.m., Bethel, about 50 miles from the crash site, reported 600 feet overcast, 1.25 miles visibility, unknown precipitation, and mist. At 11:05 a.m., it was 500 feet overcast with three miles visibility.
Kipnuk, about 39 miles from the accident site, reported 600 feet overcast with light snow with nine miles visibility at 10:56 a.m. Within an hour of the crash, conditions deteriorated at both airports, with ceilings down to 400 feet and visibility as low as a half mile with light snow, mist, and freezing fog.
The NTSB has released the factual report for the Feb. 6, 2020, crash of Yute Commuter Service Flight 1002, which impacted terrain 12 miles west of Tuntutuliak, Alaska. The accident resulted in the deaths of all five people onboard the single-engine Piper PA-32R, including the pilot. At the time of the crash the pilot, age 34, had logged an estimated 645 hours of total time and had been hired by the company one month earlier; this was his fourth line flight.
Yute is a VFR-only Part 135 commuter airline based in Bethel, a regional hub city of 6,500 people in southwestern Alaska. According to the report, which was accompanied by a docket including 264 pages of interviews with company personnel and a detailed weather study, Flight 1002 departed Bethel at 10:40 a.m. under special VFR for the villages of Kipnuk and Chefornak. The forecast cited IFR conditions “with occasional visibility below 3 miles in light snow and mist.”
The accident occurred at about 11:10 a.m. or 30 minutes after departure. At 10:43 a.m., Bethel, about 50 miles from the crash site, reported 600 feet overcast, 1 1/4 miles visibility, unknown precipitation, and mist. At 11:05 a.m., it was 500 feet overcast and three miles visibility.
Kipnuk, about 39 miles from the accident site, reported 600 feet overcast with light snow, and nine miles visibility at 10:56 a.m. Within an hour of the crash, conditions deteriorated at both airports with ceilings down to 400 feet and visibility as low as a half mile with light snow, mist, and freezing fog.
The FAA was aware of previous concerns from Yute pilots in Bethel. According to records obtained earlier this year by AIN via the Freedom Of Information Act, on Aug. 5, 2019, a Yute pilot made an anonymous hotline complaint alleging that the company chief pilot departed Bethel the day before with less than two miles visibility and fog and had encouraged pilots to depart in “unsafe conditions” within the previous few days. The FAA obtained the weather for the period and determined that the lowest official conditions when the chief pilot operated were two miles visibility and 600 feet overcast. A memorandum prepared by the company's FAA principal operations inspector addressing the complaint stated that eight flights departed on August 3 with “either a 500 feet [ceiling] and/or 2SM [statute mile] visibility.” One flight departed six minutes prior to the ceiling officially dropping to 400 feet.
The FAA determined that the August complaint was not substantiated and thus no corrective or enforcement actions were warranted. In an interview with the company's director of operations, it was recommended that he “review the risk assessment procedures and ensure that those procedures accurately capture the risk of these operations and that these operations have adequate management oversight.”
Six months later, when Flight 1002 departed, company owner Wade Renfro had operational control. Physically located in the town of Soldotna, 360 miles away, Renfro is also Yute’s president and general manager. The director of operations, who did not reside in Bethel, was in Las Vegas at the time of the crash; the chief pilot was out of the office and flying.
Renfro told investigators that, as he remembered, it was supposed to be VFR throughout the area later in the day and instrument conditions were not expected. He checked on the weather from his home and spoke to flight followers at about 7:30 a.m. The flight followers, he explained, “make sure it’s legal…and they look to make sure...there are no big hazards that they know of that they can identify.” He made clear to investigators that the final decision on each flight belongs, however, to the pilot. “He is still to check the weather for himself and make sure the flight is good because he is the final authority,” said Renfro.
Per the company’s approved general operations manual, each pilot was required to complete a risk assessment form prior to departure and leave it with company flight followers to be filed. Company officials were not able to locate the form for Flight 1002.
Two weeks after the crash, a former Yute pilot, who left the company in April 2019, sat for an interview with investigators. He described his check ride with the chief pilot during which they landed at one airport at 400 feet overcast and visibility less than a mile. They departed there with a ceiling of less than 200 feet and broke out at their next destination at 150 feet. When they returned to Bethel, under a special VFR, they had less than 10 gallons of fuel on board.
The former pilot asserted that the company provided no training for flat light or VFR into IMC and pressured pilots to fly at 500 feet overcast and two miles visibility. “They want you to get there no matter what,” he said, and in the winter, at Tuntutuliak, it was “always essentially instrument conditions.” The pilot told investigators he left Yute due to safety concerns.
The final probable cause for the crash of Flight 1002 is expected in the next three weeks.