Homer Air Flight 114A
Cessna 206 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Homer Airport (PAHO) to Nanwalek Airport (KEB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC10FA029
- 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 206
- 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
- N522HA
- Operator
- Homer Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Homer Airport (PAHO), Homer, AKTo Nanwalek Airport (KEB), Nanwalek, 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a scheduled passenger flight and, shortly after takeoff, about 300 feet above the ground, the engine began to run rough, lose power, and vibrate violently. He attempted to return to the runway, but, during the turn, the airplane impacted snow-covered terrain, coming to rest inverted about 500 feet from the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. A postaccident examination revealed that the No. 4 engine cylinder head was cracked and separated from the cylinder barrel, resulting in the power loss. The pilot's decision to attempt to return to the departure runway with insufficient altitude, instead of landing in the 1,800 foot long clearway, precipitated a loss of control and impact with terrain, adding to the severity of the accident.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the No. 4 engine cylinder head resulting in a loss of engine power. Contributing to the severity of the accident was the pilot's decision to attempt a low altitude turn back to the airport, resulting in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC10FA029
- Event ID
- 20100331X51222
- Case number
- ANC10FA029
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: 176fc895c6508981229b67c16c03b366361e1be9961fa7084f90623d53718e19; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:48:22.681Z.