Willow Air Service de Havilland DHC-2 accident
de Havilland DHC-2 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From W10 · Willow, AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC94LA113
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
de Havilland DHC-2
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-2
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N1785R
- Operator
- Willow Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W10 · Willow, AKTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Taxi · to runway
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- On ground/water collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED COMMERCIAL PILOT AND ONE PASSENGER WERE PREPARING TO DEPART A RIVER AREA ON A NON-SCHEDULED CFR PART 135 FISHING/GUIDE CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT. THE PILOT APPLIED ENGINE POWER TO MOVE THE FLOAT EQUIPPED AIRPLANE FROM A SAND BAR ONTO THE RIVER. AS THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO MOVE, THE RIGHT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER STRUCK A TREE STUMP, DAMAGING THE STABILIZER SPAR AND FUSELAGE.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE FROM AN OBJECT (TREE).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC94LA113
- Event ID
- 20001206X01913
- Case number
- ANC94LA113
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-08-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d6494d19d2e2a905597bf277119f55538da2c2d9598dfe5a93a0976549e363f1; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:09:17.016Z.