6 Feb 2025, Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, Bering Air Flight 445, Alaska

Final Reports
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On February 6, 2025, about 1520 Alaska standard time, a Textron Aviation 208B airplane, N321BA, operated as Bering Air flight 445, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Nome, Alaska. The pilot and nine passengers died. The airplane was operated under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 135 as a scheduled charter flight.

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The accident pilot was scheduled to fly a three-leg roundtrip on the day of the accident, originating at Nome Airport (PAOM). The accident occurred during the third leg of the trip on the return flight to PAOM. The pilot departed on this last leg about 1437. He used the autopilot for most of the final flight.

The Bering Air dispatcher who reviewed the day’s weather with the pilot before the first flight leg stated that the pilot was aware of the weather and conditions for the time and route of the accident flight based on the information available at the time and had no concerns. However, about 38 minutes after departing on the last leg, the flight encountered severe icing conditions, including supercooled large droplets (SLD). The airplane had a functioning TKS ice protection system, which the pilot used during the flight’s encounter with icing conditions.

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About 1512, PAOM closed both of its runways for deicing, which was expected to take 10 to 15 minutes. The radar controller informed the pilot of the closure and suggested that he could “slow down a little bit” to prevent arriving before the runway was reopened. The pilot reduced engine power, and the airplane’s airspeed decreased from about 160 kts to about 110 kts; the pilot then increased engine power, and the airspeed increased to about 126 kts. About 1519, the airspeed again began to decrease, down to about 99 kts, which activated the airplane’s low airspeed awareness (LAA) system. As designed, activation of the LAA system resulted in the autopilot disengaging.

At 1519:46, the airplane’s descent rate was about 2,000 feet per minute (fpm); data from the airplane’s onboard avionics indicate that the airplane’s pitch attitude reached its maximum value of about 10º to12º nose up (consistent with an elevator input by the pilot) at an airspeed of 89 kts about this time. Its descent rate then decreased to 1,400 fpm over 3 seconds. Over the next 8 to 9 seconds, the airplane’s airspeed decreased to about 70 kts at an altitude of about 3,100 ft mean sea level (msl).

At 1520:07, the radar controller instructed the pilot to climb and maintain 4,000 ft msl. The controller attempted to contact the pilot again 7 seconds later but received no response. The final automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast position data point was recorded at 1520:09 when the airplane was at an altitude of 1,325 ft msl. It impacted pack ice about 12 miles offshore of Norton Sound and about 32 miles east of PAOM.

PROBABLE CAUSE

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s inadequate airspeed management due to workload and degraded situation awareness and his improper inputs leading up to and during the aerodynamic stall, which increased the airplane’s angle of attack. Also causal was operation of the airplane above maximum gross weight, which reduced the airplane’s stall margin. Contributing to the accident were the operator’s inadequate safety management, which allowed the routine operation of flights that exceeded weight limitations, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s inadequate oversight of the operator, which failed to identify and address the routine operation of overweight flights.

Report: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AIR-26-05.pdf

Docket: ANC25MA018.aspx

FlySto: FlySto

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With this kind of company culture, I’m honestly shocked an accident didnt occur sooner. The company culture and the pilot making improper inputs in reaction to the stall warning reminds me of the very recently released final report of the crash of a Voepass ATR 72 in Brazil in 2024, which also was caused by bad company culture and the crew improperly reacting to stall warnings.

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That’s another mishap that I need to cover at some point on my channel

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I didn’t catch it, but was the pilot in IMC when he stalled and crashed? I imagine if he was in icing conditions he was probably in IMC or restricted visibility at the time of the stall and crash.

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As a former Director of Operations for an Alaska part 135 operation, the risk assessment form is over-rated. It is very mechanical and is designed to get flight management involved in the go/no-go decision. If the DO is already involved, it is somewhat superfluous. With larger operations, it makes sense as the DO can’t be everywhere. Bering Air may have been large enough to need that procedure, I can say as I don’t have direct experience with their operations. As for flying overweight, it happens, and is often part of the game in Alaska, but it is disturbing to me that it was the norm, and not the exception. Also, 1000# over gross in a C-208 is pushing it. That is a much higher percentage of overage, than I am personally comfortable with, and would not have allowed my pilots to operate in that manner. Sadly, this was largely a story of the pilot failing at basic airmanship. There is no excuse for not adding power in the situation he was in, and doing so, probably would have avoided all of this.

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Yeah. As a former maintainer for two different companies that also competed for these routes and flew 208s, sadly it’s extremely common for the caravan to be overweight. Thank you for this great breakdown Hoover, I’ve been curious about it since it happened, particularly about the TKS system and the icing involvement. One of the companies I worked for there flew both older caravans with the pneumatic ice boots and the EX with the TKS systems, (and an older 208 upgraded to a TKS system) and the pilots always talked about the differences between the two systems and a lot of our pilots preferred the pneumatic boots over the TKS.

I think another large factor that creates more pressure for pilots to not report things is a lot of times these companies are just scraping by, and they are small enough that if the FAA decides to get involved there’s a good chance the company can’t handle it financially. You mentioned in the video that the competing company in Nome went out of business during Covid, that was RavnAir, Ravn was a much larger company, and Ravn had gone out of business at least two other times while I was working in the area. There are handfuls of other 135 operators that all went out of business in the area from 2020-2026, I can think of 5. The company i was working for at the time of this incident actually picked up some of the routes into Nome after this and went out of business shortly after.

The other side of that is aviation to these towns and villages is not a luxury, it is required. Many of these places have no other alternative means of transportation that can accommodate their needs. If your the only air carrier flying into one, your company going out of business could mean that town goes without groceries until someone can come fill the position, and with as many companies going out of business as i mentioned before, there’s less and less people capable of filling those roles.

I think these factors add a lot more pressure for pilots to accept flights that are more of a risk than what most other pilots in America understand, and I think understanding some of this kinda helps to understand the statements you talked about in your video where sometimes they seemed slightly dismissive of the weight issues. Obviously it’s a little bit of an exaggerated comparison, but some of these flights can have the weight of events like the movie Balto, which is the story of the first Iditarod run, teams of dogsleds racing against time to deliver medicine to Nome Alaska, where this flight was headed. Aviation to these towns and villages is their lifeline, important flights allow pilots to except more risk, then the risk becomes the norm, and you see that decision making bleed into the mundane flights, it’s the deviation spiral you described.

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Another excellent video, l am close to working in aviation 40 years in various roles, keep up the excellent videos, safety is absolutely paramount.

Cheers Syd

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Hello @Kayakjohn

The NTSB determined that if SLD had been a problem then the aircraft would have stalled at a higher speed than it did. I just watched the livestream Hoover did and it seems the plane was ideally equipped for the flying it was doing, well able to cope with the conditions. The pilot had over 2k hours and over 1k in that make and model of aircraft.

A few things contributed to the accident, even the pilot being advised by ATC that due to a runway closure, he might like to slow down. I wasn’t very impressed with the Safety Officer, unless he was very new in the role. His remarks to the NTSB were kind of weird. He acknowledged the failings in the company culture but seemed to be saying there wasn’t much he could do about it and in the same sentence, he seemed to be justifying the overweight flights etc.

I don’t know if a Safety Officer can approach the FAA and ask them to visit the company and officially do something about the overweight aircraft? Although that makes him sound even more ineffective.

It sounds as if the company could have done with providing the pilots with recurrent training on upset recovery. The pilot had apparently passed a check ride fairly recently, but it would have been more helpful if that had included stall recovery.

I get that the pilot wasn’t happy about being asked to fly over max gross weight and felt trapped in that if he left the company he would have struggled to find future employment since Bering Air was the sole charter company in the area, but relocating or even unemployment is better than dying and possibly better than staying in a job where he had reservations about his safety. At the end of the day, the safety of the flight is the pilot’s responsibility and if something goes wrong on a flight, it can go deadly wrong and I don’t think taking any risk is worth it. As a passenger, I’d rather not board an aircraft than travel on one that was overweight and I wouldn’t mind at all if the pilot made that decision. I don’t think the practice is justifiable by saying the service is a lifeline to people living there. It wasn’t much of a lifeline to those 10 people, was it?

I did wonder if the pilot was quite as resistant to these overweight flights as his fiancée was saying. It’s likely she feels angry with Bering Air and wanted to stress the point. The pilot did seem to be complicit in the practice of altering weights to make the flight legal.

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When I did my Transport Canada private pilot flight test, I was required to perform both power-on and power-off stalls to the point of entering the spin, using a spin-certified aircraft. We also have to perform a spin to the point of recovery during our annual flight review while flyng for Canadian Civil Air Search. I am unsure if this policy is standard in other countires.

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You’re somebody I would fly with! It sounds scary, allowing the plane to get into a spin and hoping to goodness either you or the examiner could get it out again. What did you mean when you said the aircraft was certified for spin? Any aircraft can spin. You mean it’s certified not to break up in flight if it spins?

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Story suggestion: the Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 crash at ĂŽles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, March 29, 2016 (TSB report A16A0032).

Seven killed, including former federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, his wife and three of his siblings. The family was flying in for their father’s funeral. The aircraft came down about two kilometres short of the runway.

What makes it worth a video: no mechanical faults were found. The aircraft was high and fast on approach, the autopilot was engaged, and it rolled into a steep right bank and hit the ground nearly level. The TSB found the pilot had the required hours on type but only four hours on the MU-2B in the month before the crash. Weather was two miles visibility — legal, but tight. He never called a go-around.

Classic unstable approach with a high-performance type that doesn’t forgive much. Would make a good one.

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@moiraatkinson I understand that. Just wondering why he stalled the aircraft if he was ok because he had the TKS deicing in use and didn’t stall until a much lower speed than would be associated with SLD or icing of the wing. Instead of decreasing the angle of attack and increasing engine power to recover from the stall. Could the pilot have been experiencing spatial disorientation which led him to not recovering when the stall warning horn went off at 97kts?

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I didn’t think he was in IMC - that is, he had the visibility to see the ground, didn’t he? It more looks like he was startled and made a bad job of recovering. Flying a bit slow to start with - I’m not sure if he would still have been overweight by that stage of the flight as fuel would have been burned, it may still have taken him by surprise. Either way I had hoped that the stall horn was a bit like the EGPWS ie it would produce instant corrective action in any pilot. I’d say he lost situational awareness more than suffered special disorientation. It seems counterintuitive to increase power while pointing straight at the ground, but that’s what pilots are taught to do I guess.

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Senior AME (Medical) here.

Although there were no drugs etc. found in the autopsy, there was no more mentioning of human factors… like duty/resttime before the accident, who sat on the second seat in front, special psychological strains for the pilot outside the company etc.

There could have been other contributing factors to why he flew into a stall…

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I used to fly for one of Bering Air’s competitors 20+ years ago. Back then, they were the Nome flight operation that every pilot wanted to fly for. They required more AK flying time than I currently had, so they turned me down & I flew for a company across the ramp instead. Bering Air had the reputation of having the safest, most experienced pilots & ground ops in western AK. So it stunned me to hear about this crash. I flew the same routes in the same aircraft in the same weather conditions countless times. I can’t imagine responding to a stall condition the way this pilot did. Sounds like basic airmanship would have gotten him out of it. Stunning, based on what I know about Bering Air’s history of quality aviation.

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The risk assessment/SMS keeps being touted as the cure-all for solving Alaska accidents yet it does nothing to actually solve underlying problems, it is PR shield. LAB Flying being the pinnacle example.. one side of the FAA holding press conferences about the first full SMS system under the Medallion program while another part of the FAA was issuing emergency revocations of aircraft certificates and operation certificate.

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The reality is that aviation is essential in Alaska, and the conditions are challenging. Nothing fits into a cookie cutter framework thought up in DC by some aviation policy dweeb. There is no silver bullet. The FAA needs more people with real world experience to oversee these operations and they need to insist on management personal for these operators who are also experienced and hard-nosed enough to be very hands-on and not be afraid to tell the boss and bean counters when something isn’t safe. With no system really able to meet the challenges, it has to be the people. Inevitably there will be a situation where a flight has to pick up some folks at a village for medical appointments or something critical, and the pilot will find that the stated weights of the passenger, etc, puts you over weight, or some such. A cavalier attitude is dangerous to the flight and a 100% adherence to procedures causes other, very real, harms.

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Thanks. Fair question, and you’re right that almost any aircraft will spin if you provoke it.

“Approved for spins” means the manufacturer flight tested that model in a spin and demonstrated it will recover using the standard technique within a set number of turns, and that the airframe is stressed for the loads you pull coming out. Two separate things really: predictable recovery behaviour, and structure. It’s written in the POH and usually on a placard.

Loading matters as much as the model. A 172 is approved for intentional spins in the utility category, which means front seats only and weight and CG inside the utility envelope. Put people in the back and it’s in the normal category, placarded no intentional spins. Same airplane, different approval.

And it isn’t a full developed spin on the ride. It’s the incipient stage, the first part of a turn where the wing drops and the nose falls through. You recover right there. But the aircraft still has to be approved for it, because that’s where you end up if the recovery doesn’t go the way you planned. One important fact I learned is in a climbing turn the high wing stalls first, this causes the aircraft to fall over into a spin, contary to what you expect.

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Human nature makes you pull back when the nose is pointed at the ground. That’s the exact thing that makes it worse it keeps the wing stalled, and the spin gets more aggressive. Forcing yourself to push forward goes against every instinct, but you have to, because the wing won’t fly again until you have airflow over it. Depends on the circumstances, but below 1,000 feet there usually isn’t enough altitude left to recover before you hit the ground.

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Exactly what I was saying earlier in the thread :grinning_face:. It’s got to feel completely counterintuitive. However, it’s always been my understanding that pilots are trained to do that, in the same way they’re trained to react to wind shear, EGPWS, etc. I suppose if you’re close to the ground you might be able to power out of it, after dropping the nose for a few seconds.

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