Alaska Flyers Cessna 206 accident
Cessna 206 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Barter Island Long Range Radar Station Airport (PABA) to Barter Island Long Range Radar Station Airport (PABA)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC03LA108
- 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
Cessna 206
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N206J
- Operator
- Alaska Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Barter Island Long Range Radar Station Airport (PABA), Barter Island, AKTo Barter Island Long Range Radar Station Airport (PABA), Barter Island, 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), 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 airline transport certificated pilot, with three passengers, was departing from a wet and mud-covered off-airport site on a CFR Part 135 on-demand charter flight. The pilot reported that just after lift-off the left wing stalled, and the airplane settled to the ground. He said that he realized after touchdown he would be unable to stop the airplane before reaching the end of the site, so he elected to make a hard turn to the left in an attempt to ground loop the airplane. During the ground loop, the right main landing gear collapsed, and the right wing struck the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage. In the pilot's written statement to the NTSB, the pilot wrote, in part: "It is believed that we lost a cylinder, will confirm when able to do a test." On January 14, 2004, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airworthiness inspector examined the accident airplane and engine after the airplane had been recovered from the accident site. The FAA inspector reported that he did not discover any preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during takeoff which resulted in a loss of control during initial climb. Factors associated with the accident were wet and muddy runway conditions, and the pilot's selection of an unsuitable takeoff area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC03LA108
- Event ID
- 20031008X01677
- Case number
- ANC03LA108
- 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, 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: 58ba998630385ffc6e0c0a809b1533e60357558116e34f7ded1f425b9d1f7a1e; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:41:02.266Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N206J; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.