Brooks Range Aviation de Havilland DHC-2 MK.1 accident
de Havilland DHC-2 MK.1 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Anaktuvuk Pass, AK to Bettles Airport (PABT)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA109
- 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 MK.1
- 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
- N4040W
- Operator
- Brooks Range Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anaktuvuk Pass, AKTo Bettles Airport (PABT), Bettles, 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
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport certificated pilot was transporting passengers from a remote lake in a float-equipped airplane under Title 14, CFR Part 135. He said that during takeoff he passed his predetermined point to abort the takeoff without becoming airborne, and felt that he had to proceed with the takeoff or hit the shoreline. The pilot said that he was able to become airborne, but struck the shore of the lake with the airplane's floats just after liftoff. He stated that he was concerned about damage to the floats from the impact with the shore, and elected to land on a hard surface runway at the destination airport. The float structure collapsed during landing, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage. There were no known mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff at his predetermined reference point, which resulted in a collision with the shore during takeoff-initial climb, and structural damage to the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA109
- Event ID
- 20060817X01200
- Case number
- ANC06LA109
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-08-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 07ee89a53005500e3dde23f02ce734adbd01827d2362815239f9278c77e392b3; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:51:09.445Z.