Grand Canyon Airlines de Havilland DHC-6-300 accident
de Havilland DHC-6-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA89MA076
- 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
- 10 · 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
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
- N75GC
- Operator
- Grand Canyon Airlines
- 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 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- Loss of control 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Flare, improper
- Crew/group coordination › Improper
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
GRAND CANYON AIRLINES FLT 5 (DEHAVILLAND DHC-6, N75GC) DEPD GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK ARPT ON A LOCAL PART 135, SIGHT- SEEING FLT. AFTER RTRNG FROM A NORMAL TRIP, THE FLT WAS CLEARED TO LAND ON RWY 21. OBSERVERS RPRTD THE APCH TO THE ARPT WAS NORMAL, BUT THE ACFT TRAVELED ABOUT 1000' DOWN THE RWY AT AN ALT OF ABOUT 5' BEFORE TOUCHDOWN. RPRTDLY, IT BOUNCED &TRAVELED ANOTHER 1000' BEFORE TOUCHING DOWN AGAIN. THE ACFT THEN VEERED TO THE RGT & THE FLT CREW INITIATED A GO-AROUND (ABORTED LNDG). THE ACFT CLIMBED IN A NOSE HIGH ALT TO ABOUT 150' TO 200' AGL, THEN IT ROLLED TO THE LEFT & CRASHED ONTOA WOODED HILL ABOUT 120' LEFT OF THE RWY. A PWR LINE WAS SEVERED DURING IMPACT, WHICH INTERUPTED ELEC PWR TO THE ARPT & DELAYED EMERG RESPONSE TO THE CRASH. SURVIVING PSGRS RPRTD THE RGT SEAT PLT WAS FLYING THE ACFT, WHILE THE LEFT SEAT PLTNARRATED THE TOUR; BUT AFTER A HARD TOUCHDOWN, THE LEFT SEAT PLT TOOK CTL OF THE ACFT & APPLIED FULL PWR FOR A GO-AROUND. A SCRAPE MARK WAS FND WHERE THE RGT WINGTIP SCRAPED THE RWY DURING THE 2ND TOUCHDOWN.
Probable cause
IMPROPER PILOT TECHNIQUES AND CREW COORDINATION DURING THE LANDING ATTEMPT, BOUNCE, AND ATTEMPTED GO-AROUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA89MA076
- Event ID
- 20001213X29336
- Case number
- DCA89MA076
- 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: bb1d99688e0a56419fd4117ae4b3d69484311410f2d3e079da426b8188bb1c18; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:07:57.859Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "GRAND CANYON AIRLINES FLT 5 (DEHAVILLAND DHC-6, N75GC) DEPD GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK ARPT"