ANC16LA034 · de Havilland DHC3 T
de Havilland DHC3 T · Accident: birdstrike en route
From Homer-Beluga Lake Seaplane Base (5BL) to Homer-Beluga Lake Seaplane Base (5BL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC16LA034
- 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 DHC3 T
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC3
- 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
- N104BM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Homer-Beluga Lake Seaplane Base (5BL), Homer, AKTo Homer-Beluga Lake Seaplane Base (5BL), Homer, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1956)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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 structures
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator reported that the airplane was flying straight and level at an altitude about 2,500 ft when the flight crew saw what they believed to be a bald eagle immediately before hearing and feeling an impact to the left wing. After the impact, they noted that the leading edge of the wing was damaged and deformed. Although the airplane continued to perform normally, the crew elected to return to their base and land. The first landing attempt was aborted due to an uncontrollable aileron roll to the left when the airspeed dropped below 75 mph. During the subsequent landing, the flight crew maintained the airspeed above 75 mph until just above the landing surface. The landing was accomplished without any further control issues.
Postaccident examination revealed substantial damage to the left wing. Portions of the bird remains were retrieved from inside the left wing and sent to the Smithsonian Institution Feather Identification Laboratory in Washington, D.C. The remains were positively identified as bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). The damage due to bird's impact with the left wing negatively affected the airplane's aerodynamic performance while operating at a slow airspeed, which necessitated the high speed landing.
The pilot reported there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with a bald eagle, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC16LA034
- Event ID
- 20160622X43524
- Case number
- ANC16LA034
- 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: 5149d5e78b96bf58726b62a5abab101cacb3d2951942f7c63ea24be59fbcd775; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:32:23.033Z.