WPR14CA086 · de Havilland BEAVER DHC 2 MK.1 MARKI
de Havilland BEAVER DHC 2 MK.1 MARKI · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Shaw Island, WA to Shaw Island, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA086
- 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
de Havilland BEAVER DHC 2 MK.1 MARKI
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland BEAVER DHC 2 MK 1
- 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
- N5484U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shaw Island, WATo Shaw Island, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1960)
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 departing on a personal local flight from a narrow, tree-lined, private airstrip, located on a small island, in a single-engine, amphibious float-equipped airplane. After lifting off, as he approached the departure end of the runway, the airplane suddenly rolled left into the trees. The airplane came to rest at the base of the trees, standing on its nose and float tips. The pilot said there were no known preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane, and that he thought either the flap system or aileron system had malfunctioned causing the abrupt left roll. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
The pilot reported that when he took off the wind was calm. A resident of the island, who was working outside, heard and responded to the accident. He said the wind at his residence was gusty and varying in direction. The departure end of the runway is over a bay, and he said there were whitecaps on the bay when he arrived at the accident site.
Two islands, one to the north and one to the west of the accident island, have automated weather reporting stations. The island to the north was reporting wind at 12 knots gusting to 20 knots. The island to the west was reporting calm wind.
On site documentation revealed there was a break in the tree-line along the right side of the runway, about the same area where the loss of control occurred. A commercial airplane operator reported that he suspended flight operations to neighboring islands the afternoon of the accident, due to wind/wind shear.
A postaccident examination of the airframe did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff in variable wind conditions, resulting in a collision with trees lining the left side of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA086
- Event ID
- 20140103X15141
- Case number
- WPR14CA086
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-01-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 196b59f02b0fd0d94d5836d1a2ad4a27003c8e4c0a59851dfc3138b2e6b5a289; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:13:40.124Z.