ANC07CA089 · Cessna U206G
Branch River Air Cessna U206G · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while taxiing
From Iliamna, AK to King Salmon Airport (PAKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC07CA089
- 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 U206G
- 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
- N4773U
- Operator
- Branch River Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Iliamna, AKTo King Salmon Airport (PAKN), King Salmon, 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo commercial certificated pilot was water-taxiing the float-equipped airplane for takeoff to conduct a positioning flight under Title 14, CFR Part 91, when the accident occurred. The pilot reported that the winds were 30 knots, gusting to 40 knots, and that the wind picked up the left wing, forcing the right wing into the shallow water where it struck the bottom of the lake. He said the airplane righted itself, and he was able to taxi to the shore. In a written statement, the pilot reported that the damage to the airplane sustained during the accident was to the right wingtip, and one-fifth of the right wing.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for gusty wind conditions, which resulted in the float-equipped airplane's right wing striking the bottom of the shallow lake, while taxiing for takeoff. A factor contributing to the accident was the gusty wind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC07CA089
- Event ID
- 20070920X01423
- Case number
- ANC07CA089
- 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: e3cbd020d10271f0fdfd54e1884c0c81095d1699db7308fee2907e3b6748ab8d; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:30:41.299Z.