ANC16CA049 · Cessna U206 F
Cessna U206 F · Accident: hard landing
From Merle K (Mudhole) Smith Airport (CDV) to Cordova, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC16CA049
- 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
Cessna U206 F
- 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
- N1222V
- Operator
- Alaska Gulf Coast Adventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merle K (Mudhole) Smith Airport (CDV), Cordova, AKTo Cordova, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1974)
- 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 · flare/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
- 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 reported that while landing the tricycle-geared airplane on a remote beach, he "landed a little hard, but not too hard." Following touchdown, the right main landing separated at the axle, the right wing impacted the ground, and the left main landing gear collapsed. Subsequently, the left wing and the left horizontal stabilizer impacted the ground and sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The Federal Aviation Administration has published the Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3A (2004). This handbook discusses soft-field landings and states in part:
Landing on fields that are rough or have soft surfaces, such as snow, sand, mud, or tall grass requires unique procedures. When landing on such surfaces, the objective is to touch down as smoothly as possible, and at the slowest possible landing speed. The pilot must control the airplane in a manner that the wings support the weight of the airplane as long as practical, to minimize drag and stresses imposed on the landing gear by the rough or soft surface.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing and subsequent landing gear separation and collapse.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC16CA049
- Event ID
- 20160721X51844
- Case number
- ANC16CA049
- 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: 0ab5bcbe1044f1bc33d44d8ca4e13157f1bd543a5ae6da2c7eed4803624d9706; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:41:07.518Z.