Branch River Air de Havilland DHC-2 accident
de Havilland DHC-2 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From King Salmon Airport (PAKN) to King Salmon, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08CA002
- 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
- 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
- N24BR
- Operator
- Branch River Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King Salmon Airport (PAKN), King Salmon, AKTo 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 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 final
- 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 › 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 commercial certificated pilot was conducting an off airport landing with passengers under Title 14, CFR Part 135, when the accident occurred. The pilot reported that he was on short final, 8-10 feet above the ground, when a "gust or something" lifted the right wing 50-60 degrees above horizontal, and the left wing struck the ground. He said he was able to level the wings, but the airplane touched down while drifting to the left. He reported that the airplane skidded forward about 50 feet and nosed over. The airplane sustained damage to the left wingtip, the left wing aft attach point, and the right landing gear attach point. The pilot reported the wind was from 300 degrees, at 25 knots, with gusts to 30 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for gusty wind conditions during the final approach to land, which resulted in the airplane colliding with terrain. A factor contributing to the accident was the gusty wind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08CA002
- Event ID
- 20071120X01824
- Case number
- ANC08CA002
- 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: 15b13aec0031fb7373b6b02ea67740a9e37e7cbc0d3ce44ef1ba49dcb2f1a0b0; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:41:18.951Z.