Doug Geeting Avaition de Havilland DHC-2 accident
de Havilland DHC-2 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water while taxiing
From Talkeetna Airport (TKA) to Talkeetna Airport (TKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC02LA051
- 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
- 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-2
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-2
- 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
- N62197
- Operator
- Doug Geeting Avaition
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AKTo Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, 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
- Taxi
- 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 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial pilot reported that after an uneventful glacier landing, he wanted to reposition the airplane to an area that was better suited for unloading his passengers. As he taxied the airplane up the glacier, the airplane's tailwheel entered a hole in the hard-packed snow, and the left elevator horn dug into the snow. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left elevator. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an unsuitable taxi area, which resulted in substantial damage to the left elevator when the tailwheel encountered a hole. A factor associated with the accident was rough/uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC02LA051
- Event ID
- 20020619X00929
- Case number
- ANC02LA051
- 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: 8c76b26edc66642f10128ee7fc8ff4734acf70cd4d393a3b1007bac43f243f14; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:01:50.954Z.