ANC05LA133 · Cessna 206
Cessna 206 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From East Alsek River Airport (AK76) to Tanis Mesa Airport (A69)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC05LA133
- 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 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
- N4991F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From East Alsek River Airport (AK76), Yakutat, AKTo Tanis Mesa Airport (A69), Yakutat, 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
- 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/mush
- 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
- 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 airline transport certificated pilot, with four passengers, fishing equipment, and a dog aboard, were departing on a personal flight from a remote gravel airstrip that was 1,100 feet long and 10 feet wide. The FAA's Airport/Facility Directory, Alaska Supplement listing for the airstrip includes "...dips and humps 8 to 12 inches entire length. Rocks on surface to 3 inches. Runway used as a road." The pilot told the NTSB investigator-in-charge (IIC) that during the takeoff roll, the airplane became airborne in ground effect, but the engine power rapidly decreased, and the airplane settled into about 12 inches of water in a tidal zone. The pilot indicated that the airplane had flown through heavy rain in the previous four days, but he had not encountered any problems until the accident takeoff. The airplane received structural damage to the right wingtip and right wing root. An FAA inspector interviewed the pilot and passengers, and reported that the pilot told him the airplane became airborne after hitting some bumps about 2/3 of the way down the runway. The pilot said he attempted to keep the airplane airborne in ground effect, but it settled to the soft ground beyond the end of the runway in high grass and water. Based on his interviews, the inspector estimated that the airplane was within 100 pounds of its gross weight limit. The inspector indicated that air taxi operators in the local area only use the airstrip while carrying a reduced load due to the condition of the airstrip surface. Sufficient structural and propeller repairs were made to the airplane at the accident scene allowing it to be flown out by recovery personnel, and they did not report any engine problems.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff, and his failure to maintain adequate airspeed during takeoff initial climb from a remote airstrip, which resulted in the airplane descending to the ground and colliding with soft terrain beyond the end of the airstrip. Factors contributing to the accident were the rough/uneven airstrip surface consisting of humps and rocks, and an inadvertent stall/mush.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC05LA133
- Event ID
- 20050907X01396
- Case number
- ANC05LA133
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-09-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a4bdaaa298d1b54958d1d1b9086e3744131451daf46f0256c9c2c6a6ed03799f; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:24:53.498Z.