ANC96FA079 · Republic RC-3 SEABEE RC-3 SEABE
Republic RC-3 SEABEE RC-3 SEABE · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water
From an unrecorded airport to Ketchikan International Airport (KTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96FA079
- 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
- 2 · 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
- General aviation
- 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
Republic RC-3 SEABEE RC-3 SEABE
- Aircraft type
- Republic RC-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
- N99FJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Ketchikan International Airport (KTN), AK
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The tail of the airplane sank while it was parked on the beach at Eagle Lake. The pilot obtained help, and the airplane was refloated on May 24, 1996. The people who helped refloat the airplane stated the surface of Eagle Lake was 'glassy water.' The pilot indicated that he would depart the Lake immediately after the help had departed; however, the airplane did not arrive at the destination. Subsequently, evidence was found that the airplane had crashed and had sank in the lake. A sponson was found floating on the lake. Damage on the sponson showed that it had torn away from the airplane's wing, consistent with a rearward force. Also, a video tape showed airplane wreckage scattered over the bottom of the lake. According to the accident pilot's son, the airplane had a history of leaking in the tail. He stated that his father, the accident pilot, was going to purchase a new bilge pump upon arriving at Ketchikan.
Probable cause
the airplane crashed for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96FA079
- Event ID
- 20001208X05679
- Case number
- ANC96FA079
- 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 1996-05-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5b6870f70721ea0cc7a5d47c8d55ae2cea9bdf28590ac1f448ca0d811735b256; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:21:20.720Z.