Branch River Air Cessna U206G accident
Cessna U206G · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Igiugig, AK to King Salmon Airport (AKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08CA110
- 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
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 Igiugig, AKTo King Salmon Airport (AKN), 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
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
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 shuttling fisherman between lakes in the float-equipped airplane under Title 14, CFR Part 135, when the accident occurred. The pilot reported that he planned to shuttle two passengers at a time, but felt the wind was sufficient to take four. He said that during the takeoff roll the wind went calm, and that the glassy water extended his run farther than expected. The pilot said he felt there was not enough lake left to stop the airplane before colliding with the bank if he aborted the takeoff, and decided to continue the takeoff. He said the airplane lifted off the lake about 20 inches, and collided with the bank. The pilot said there were no known mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident, and that the airplane sustained fuselage damage during the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudged speed and distance during takeoff, which resulted in the float-equipped airplane colliding with a bank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08CA110
- Event ID
- 20080924X01524
- Case number
- ANC08CA110
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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 2008-08-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 226efe52a3a51d9fc836414dd18fb43fd5f13cea253332e5c7125e9e65038429; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:15:56.489Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N4773U; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.