Flight 863 · de Havilland DHC-6-200
de Havilland DHC-6-200 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Kipnuk Airport (PAKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC03LA024
- 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
- 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
de Havilland DHC-6-200
- 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
- N206EH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Kipnuk Airport (PAKI), Kipnuk, 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 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, 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 air carrier passenger flight was landing on an icy, 2,120 feet long, by 35 feet wide, gravel runway with nearly a direct crosswind from the right at 15 to 20 knots. During the landing roll, at the captain's directions, the first officer fully deflected the ailerons into the wind, while the captain, the designated flying pilot, manipulated the remaining flight controls and power to the engines. The airplane drifted to the left, despite the captain's efforts, and encountered a snow berm alongside the runway. The airplane was pulled to the left, and off the runway into deeper snow, collapsing the nose gear and receiving substantial damage to the fuselage directly aft of the nose gear. The captain noted in his written report to the NTSB that he believed the nose wheel steering did not turn fully to the right as he attempted to maintain directional control during the landing roll. He stated that the nose wheel steering mechanism may have had a mechanical failure. A review of the airplane's maintenance and flight discrepancy logs failed to disclose any preaccident mechanical problems with the nose wheel steering assembly. Postaccident inspection, bench testing, and disassembly of the nose wheel steering actuator, did not reveal any significant operational problems that would have precluded the nose wheel actuator from functioning. Postaccident interviews with the first officer on the accident flight, and the captain who had flown the accident airplane the day before the accident flight, indicated that they were unaware of any difficulties with the nose wheel steering. The first officer noted that the captain did not seem to utilize the rudders quickly enough, or aggressively enough, to maintain directional control during the landing roll, and relied too much on the nose wheel steering. A company captain who flew repair parts to the airplane at the accident site, reported that he walked the runway several times, looking at the accident airplane's path on the runway. He stated that it appeared to him the accident airplane's nose wheel had been turned fully to the right, and had skidded on the icy runway.
Probable cause
The captain's inadequate compensation for crosswind conditions, and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll on an icy runway, which resulted in an excursion from the runway and collision with a snow berm. Contributing factors in the accident are a crosswind, an icy runway, and a snow berm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC03LA024
- Event ID
- 20030128X00117
- Case number
- ANC03LA024
- 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: 4b940e732937b29db593c072872a3f90be8863e22b04ba2a1b6cc9fb9f5d264f; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:55:29.770Z.