ANC97FA121 · Cessna U206G
Cessna U206G · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From LEISURE LAKE, AK to AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97FA121
- 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
- 3 · 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
Cessna U206G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N756AD
- Operator
- Alain M. Reiser · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LEISURE LAKE, AKTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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 encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The float-equipped airplane departed from water into gusting winds downwind of high, steep terrain. Witnesses said the airplane did not climb above 200 feet agl, which was insufficient to clear terrain at the upwind end of the lake. The airplane entered a steep left bank and turned within the confines of the upwind end of the lake. This turn was in a downwind direction, directly downwind of a 2,600-foot high peak. The airplane abruptly pitched nose down, impacted the water in a vertical attitude, and immediately sank. Postaccident inspection disclosed the flaps were extended to 25 degrees. The propeller separated from its mounting studs, leaving metal deposited in the majority of threads. No evidence of preimpact mechanical anomalies was discovered with the airplane. An air taxi pilot who arrived at the lake immediately after the accident reported gusts and turbulence too strong to attempt to land. He reported winds at the lake as 30 knots, stronger above, with gusts visible on the water.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper evaluation of the weather conditions which led the pilot to maneuver within the confines of the lake to avoid surrounding terrain and a subsequent inadvertent stall. Factors were the terrain-induced turbulence and gusts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97FA121
- Event ID
- 20001208X08523
- Case number
- ANC97FA121
- 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 1997-08-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 46ddaba80985eb4fe2d544b6019344ae500d98dd71442cb023eb6f9a7fd74191; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:51:30.023Z.