Ward Air de Havilland DHC-3 accident
de Havilland DHC-3 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Juneau Harbor Seaplane Base (5Z1) to Berners Bay, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA103
- 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-3
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-3
- 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
- N93356
- Operator
- Ward Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juneau Harbor Seaplane Base (5Z1), Juneau, AKTo Berners Bay, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 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 › Altitude/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 pilot was transporting passengers in a float-equipped airplane under Title 14, CFR Part 135, when it collided with the surface of the water during landing. The pilot reported that he was in a descending right turn in preparation for landing, and was looking for shoreline dock as a landing reference. Prior to seeing the dock, the airplane struck the water. The left rear seat passenger said he wasn't aware the airplane was landing, and thought they were still making the approach when the airplane impacted the water. A witness who watched the accident from the ground, said there was fog and low clouds in the area, and that surface visibility was about 1 mile. The witness said as the airplane descended, he thought, " If he doesn't pull up, he's going to hit the water." The witness said the right float and wing hit the water in a right turn, and that he never heard the airplane reduce power, or saw the airplane level off before impact. The pilot did not report any mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident, and said in his written statement to the NTSB that glassy water, and flat-light conditions made it difficult to discern the surface of the water. The airplane received structural damage to the wings and fuselage.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude/clearance during approach, which resulted in the airplane impacting the surface of the water. Factors associated with the accident were the flat-light and glassy water conditions, which affected the pilot's ability to see the surface of the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA103
- Event ID
- 20060810X01145
- Case number
- ANC06LA103
- 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: c4a8131c1a782a028c440b326e9790d82569bc8694ac76d23b23e41d32353767; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:51:15.911Z.