Seaborne Aviation de Havilland DHC-6-300 accident
de Havilland DHC-6-300 and de Havilland DHC-6-300 · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while standing
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA107
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Aircraft 1 · de Havilland DHC-6-300
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- N288SA
- Operator
- Seaborne Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · de Havilland DHC-6-300
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- N224SA
- Operator
- Seaborne Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not verified
- Ground personnel › Tie down, removed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A pair of float equipped, twin engine airplanes were each parked parallel to a dock. The airplanes were separated by about eight feet, one in front of the other. Both airplanes, operated by the same company, were preparing to depart on sightseeing flights. The crew of first airplane, N288SA, was beginning a passenger briefing. The passengers were on board the airplane, but the engines had not been started. The crew of the second airplane, N224SA, had completed a briefing to their passengers, and had started the engines. N224SA was tethered to the dock by ropes attached to the floats at the forward and aft end of the airplane. Each rope was tended by a company dock handler. Due to a slight change in the manner the passengers arrived from a cruise ship, the passengers had not received a briefing booklet before boarding the airplane. A company representative approached the forward dock handler to hand the briefing booklets to the airplane crew. The aft dock handler observed this activity and mistook its meaning as a 'thumbs up' signal. He released the docking rope, allowing N224SA to begin moving forward under idle power. The and nose of N224SA collided with the tail of N288SA. N288SA received damage to the rudder and trim tab assembly. N224SA received minor damage to the left pitot tube, and the left side of the nose.
Probable cause
A failure of ground handling personnel to verify a release procedure/directive, and removal of a second airplane's tiedown, and subsequent collision from a second airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA107
- Event ID
- 20001212X19398
- Case number
- ANC99LA107
- 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: 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: bcda394629d6803097d70516960a08ba2f0e16b7854350a72c1b82a0ed6954b3; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:54:34.141Z.