ANC02LA006 · Cessna 207A
Cessna 207A · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Kobuk Airport (OBU) to Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (PAOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC02LA006
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 207A
- 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
- N7384U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kobuk Airport (OBU), KOBUK, AKTo Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (PAOT), 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 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 collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial certificated pilot departed a remote airport for a cross-country flight to his home base. During the departure, the pilot said he heard a loud bang, but said he did not see what he struck. While in cruise flight after departure, the pilot noticed damage to the leading edge of the right wing. He then landed at an interim airport, and telephoned a company mechanic. After a discussion with the mechanic, the pilot continued the flight to his base. Company personnel initially attributed the wing damage to a bird strike. Company maintenance personnel decided the wing damage was greater than minor. A temporary patch was fashioned, and the airplane was ferried to the company maintenance facility. When repairs were started, company maintenance personnel noted that the impact location on the right wing contained wood splinters. During a subsequent visit with the NTSB IIC, the pilot produced photographs of the damaged wing. The wing, just outboard of the lift strut, had aft crushing and vertical tearing of the leading edge material. Company maintenance personnel reported the wing repair consisted of replacement of the leading edge. Review of the runway environment revealed 25 to 30 feet high trees along both sides, and near the end of the departure airport.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance from objects during the initial climb after takeoff, and subsequent collision with a tree. A factor was the presence of trees along the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC02LA006
- Event ID
- 20011207X02366
- Case number
- ANC02LA006
- 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, coordinates. 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: 0387e7da05651b2fe7770f4a9982e0f2d057533ccd157a9102abd1fe1c395420; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:30:25.869Z.