Northwestern Aviation Cessna 206G accident
Cessna 206G · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA121
- 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
Cessna 206G
- 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
- N756AH
- Operator
- Northwestern Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), Kotzebue, 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 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
- 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 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE ESTIMATED THE GRAVEL RIVER BAR TAKEOFF DISTANCE AS 750 FT, AND THAT IT WAS ADEQUATE FOR TAKEOFF. DURING TAKEOFF WITH 20 DEG OF FLAPS, THE AIRPLANE SETTLED INTO THE RIVER AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER. SHORT-FIELD TAKEOFF DATA SHOWS THAT A 3300-LB AIRPLANE WOULD REQUIRE A GROUND RUN OF APRX 740 FT ON A SMOOTH PAVED SURFACE AT 15 DEG C. THE AIRPLANE WAS STC'D WITH EXTENDED WING TIP FUEL TANKS WHICH INCREASED THE MAX GROSS WEIGHT 200 LBS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ASSURE THAT ADEQUATE TAKEOFF DISTANCE WAS AVAILABLE. THE ROUGH/UNEVEN TERRAIN WAS A FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA121
- Event ID
- 20001211X12749
- Case number
- ANC93LA121
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ffcb272fa51dcdee120a224734929ae0508ff80e1325dcb5e8160826737aa193; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:33:10.405Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N756AH; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.