ANC99LA132 · Cessna 207
Cessna 207 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From CHINITNA BAY, AK to Soldotna Airport (SXQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA132
- 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 207
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N800DF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CHINITNA BAY, AKTo Soldotna Airport (SXQ), Soldotna, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was taking off from a sand beach. The on-demand fishing charter flight was about one hour late, and the incoming tide had reduced the width of the available takeoff area. During the takeoff roll, the left wingtip struck a tree stump on the high side of the beach, separating about four feet of wing and the left aileron. The commercial pilot and three passengers were not injured. The remaining two passengers received minor injuries. During a telephone interview with the NTSB investigator-in-charge (IIC), the pilot stated that the winds were from the southwest at 10 knots, and he was taking off to the west. The NTSB IIC held telephone interviews with, and received written statements from, the passengers. They indicated that the pilot was in a hurry because of the incoming tide, and the late schedule. The pilot was taking off into the setting sun, and was not wearing sunglasses. According to the passengers, the pilot said he would wait for the sun to pass behind a cloud, but decided to depart.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an unsuitable takeoff area. A factor associated with this accident was the sunglare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA132
- Event ID
- 20001212X19660
- Case number
- ANC99LA132
- 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 1999-09-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3880acf23d726f99ae8b19570b51a3a27061faf83187d2c25035295c2885c5b8; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:53:25.067Z.