Steller Air Cessna U206G accident
Cessna U206G · Accident: hard landing
From Homer-Beluga Lake Seaplane Base (5BL) to Lake Brooks Seaplane Base (5Z9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC13CA053
- 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
- N77206
- Operator
- Steller Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Homer-Beluga Lake Seaplane Base (5BL), Homer, AKTo Lake Brooks Seaplane Base (5Z9), 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was landing the float-equipped airplane at a remote lake. He stated that during the initial approach, he noticed the lake was extremely glassy. He set up for a glassy water landing with an indicated airspeed of 60 knots, and a descent rate of 100 to 200 feet per minute. After he crossed the shoreline, he noticed his airspeed had decreased to between 50 and 55 knots, and his rate of descent was more than 200 feet per minute. He added power to correct the condition, but the airplane hit the water hard and bounced. He said that he started to go around, but decided that his angle of attack was too high, and he reduced the power and let the airplane contact the water again. The airplane bounced again, then settled into the water and came to a stop. During the landing the airplane sustained substantial damage to the left horizontal stabilizer. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate airspeed control during a glassy water landing, which resulted in an excessive sink rate, and a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC13CA053
- Event ID
- 20130604X45342
- Case number
- ANC13CA053
- 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: 8968cd29c8f5f851adc75c6ac31022f3bb6ed51a492e8008c818788d8b27209b; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:46:37.600Z.