Taquan Air Service de Havilland DHC-3 accident
de Havilland DHC-3 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Ketchikan International Airport (KTN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC95LA103
- 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-3
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-3
- 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
- N472PM
- Operator
- Taquan Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ketchikan International Airport (KTN), 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flight control, elevator tab › Cracked
- Flight control, elevator tab › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD JUST COMPLETED A CLIMBOUT AND WAS ADJUSTING THE TRIM FOR LEVEL FLIGHT, WHEN THE AIRPLANE BEGAN VIBRATING. HE LANDED IMMEDIATELY. EXAMINATION SHOWED THAT A PORTION OF THE ELEVATOR SERVO TAB HAD SEPARATED. EXAMINATION OF THE REMAINING SECTION OF THE SERVO TAB SHOWED THAT THERE WERE CRACKS IN THE TRAILING EDGE. THE DIRECTOR OF MAINTENANCE REPORTED THAT WHEN THE AIRCRAFT WAS PARKED, THE TAIL WAS ABOUT 10 TO 11 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND AND WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFICULT TO INSPECT DURING PREFLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE CRACKS IN THE TRAILING EDGE OF THE ELEVATOR SERVO TAB, WHICH RESULTED IN ITS SUBSEQUENT FAILURE AND PARTIAL SEPARATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC95LA103
- Event ID
- 20001207X03836
- Case number
- ANC95LA103
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1995-07-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ac1b8f64a9ed36756048cb7f260e93440f80c1d55e07d5a92073f4ba24597eba; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:59:13.986Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N472PM; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, FYWA.