GAA15LA281 · de Havilland DHC 2 MK.I
de Havilland DHC 2 MK.I · Accident during takeoff
From GALENA, AK to Nikolai, AK
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15LA281
- 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 DHC 2 MK.I
- 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
- N676SP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From GALENA, AKTo Nikolai, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1958)
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the commercial pilot, the flight of two float-equipped company airplanes was proceeding to the river for a passenger and cargo pickup. The accident airplane landed at the primary landing site on the river, and the pilot subsequently instructed the captains of the awaiting boats to move down river to the longer, alternate landing site where the second airplane was waiting. While departing the primary site to reposition the airplane to the alternate landing site and upon reaching the step phase of the takeoff from the river, the airplane's left wing impacted a tree, and the airplane then impacted a riverbank. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
The pilot reported that he was unable to achieve sufficient directional control to avoid impact with the tree and riverbank while taking off from the river. Due to the remote accident location, the airplane was not examined.
Probable cause
A loss of directional control during a water takeoff for reasons that could not be determined because the airplane was not examined due to the remote accident location.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15LA281
- Event ID
- 20150929X53052
- Case number
- GAA15LA281
- 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: 49bdbaafecabafe1578f8bf187d371d8fe0178b64b15acefe607c1a0d42a9b26; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:50:14.657Z.