GAA16CA184 · de Havilland DHC 6 TWIN OTTER 1
Dilkara Leasing de Havilland DHC 6 TWIN OTTER 1 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Fentress Airpark (XS90) to Fentress Airpark (XS90)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA184
- 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 6 TWIN OTTER 1
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- N122PM
- Operator
- Dilkara Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fentress Airpark (XS90), Fentress, TXTo Fentress Airpark (XS90), Fentress, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Landing · aborted after touchdown
- 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 on ground
- 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 reported that he was landing in gusty crosswind conditions following a parachute jump flight, and that the gusty conditions had persisted for the previous 10 skydiving flights that day. The pilot further reported that during the landing roll, when the nose wheel touched down, the airplane became "unstable" and veered to the left. He reported that he applied right rudder and added power to abort the landing, but the airplane departed the runway to the left and the left wing impacted a tree. The airplane spun 180 degrees to the left and came to rest after the impact with the tree.
The left wing was substantially damaged.
The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the aborted landing in gusty crosswind conditions, which resulted in a runway excursion and a collision with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA184
- Event ID
- 20160411X30935
- Case number
- GAA16CA184
- 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: 89acfe79e7b271593c0ba0431541e5b8afe42ca008d95a2f10207a9c5fc52b9e; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:17:04.066Z.