Plane CrashesVersion 2

Eight Killed in Cessna 441 Crash on Approach to Remote Alaska Radar Site

A chartered Cessna 441 Conquest II crashed on its second landing attempt at Cape Newenham on August 20, killing all eight aboard, with the cause still undetermined.

2 reports on this incident · first at Sep 10, 2026, 7:24 a.m. ET

By AI ReporterFirst reported Aug 21, 2026, 12:41 a.m. ETUpdated Sep 11, 2026, 3:55 a.m. ET

A crashed on to the Long Range Radar Site in Alaska on August 20, killing all people aboard, according to Aerotime, NBC San Diego and wdio.com. The aircraft was identified as , a registration and type that aircraft registry records also list, describing a twin-engine turboprop landplane with serial number 441-0128, registered in the . Aerotime and NBC San Diego reported crew and passengers were killed, with no survivors. wdio.com and NBC San Diego reported people on board. The identities of the pilots and passengers had not been released, and the names of those on board will be released 24 hours after their next of kin are notified, according to the three outlets. On board were the pilots, employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and four contractors, of whom were employees of Calista Brice, a subsidiary of Calista Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation. The aircraft was chartered by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and of its employees were among those killed. The flight was operated by , an Anchorage-based charter company, according to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Registry records list the registered owner as Fly 4 You Inc; the owner of record is not necessarily the operator of the flight, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating. Aerotime reported the NTSB is leading the investigation with assistance from the FAA and other federal and state agencies, and that investigators have not released information about the condition of the wreckage, the aircraft's final flight path or any possible mechanical problems. wdio.com reported The cause has not been determined. Sources differ on the location and time. wdio.com and NBC San Diego placed the crash near ; Aerotime placed it near . Aerotime reported and NBC San Diego reported , while wdio.com described it as . The aircraft departed Ted Stevens International Airport and was headed to , and it crashed on its second after it was unable to land during a previous attempt, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane crashed about one-third of a mile (0.5 kilometers) from the runway at the Long Range Radar Site, and the wreckage was in an area of steep mountainous terrain.

Earlier reports

Sep 10, 2026, 7:24 a.m. ETFirst report
Cessna 441 Crashes on Second Landing Attempt in Fog at Remote Alaska Radar Site, Killing All 8 Aboard
Eight people died when a Cessna 441 crashed about one-third of a mile (0.5 kilometers) from the runway at the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site in Alaska on Thursday, August 20, 2026, according to wdio.com. The crash occurred about midday during the approach phase of flight, the outlet reported. The event is developing and the investigation is open.
According to wdio.com, the Cessna's two pilots could not see the gravel airstrip and were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed. Regulations required that the pilots abort their first landing attempt because of the lack of visibility, and the plane crashed on its second attempt, the outlet reported. On board were the pilots, two employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and four contractors, according to wdio.com. Two of the contractors were employees of Calista Brice, a subsidiary of Calista Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation, the outlet reported. The military has not said what work they were performing at the site, according to wdio.com.
An automated observation system not far from the airport reported a low cloud ceiling, fog and visibility of about 10 miles (16 kilometers) in the minutes before the crash, but the next update about 15 minutes after it showed visibility of less than one-quarter mile (0.40 kilometers), according to wdio.com. Mike O'Donnell, who oversaw airport safety programs and accident investigations for much of his 17 years at FAA, said it sounded as if weather conditions were bad enough that the pilots should have diverted and landed somewhere else, wdio.com reported.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, and NTSB investigators were traveling to the scene Friday, according to wdio.com. The cause has not been determined. The airstrip is at a private military site managed by the Pacific Air Forces Regional Support Center, and the runway is surrounded by mountainous terrain on three sides, according to wdio.com. The radar site was built in the 1950s as part of a network designed to provide early warning of a missile attack by the Soviet Union, and the outpost at Cape Newenham closed in 1983 after a new radar was installed, the outlet reported. The site is about 450 miles (725 kilometers) west of Anchorage on Alaska's southwest coast, according to wdio.com.

Was this report accurate and useful?

Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration: N128EZ
Type: Cessna 441 Conquest II — twin-engine turboprop landplane
Registered owner: Fly 4 You IncThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation: 128 ft
Nearest aerodrome: 1.7 miles W of Merrill Field (PAMR/MRI)

Sources

Revision history

Version 211 Sept 2026, 07:55current
Added the August 20 date, the second-approach detail from the NTSB, the Army Corps of Engineers charter and passenger details, the crash distance from the runway, and the conflicting location and time reports from all three outlets.
Version 110 Sept 2026, 19:46
First published.
Version 110 Sept 2026, 11:24current
First published.

How we work

This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.

Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.

Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.

None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.