Kenmore Air Harbor de Havilland BEAVER DHC 2 MK.1 MARKI accident
de Havilland BEAVER DHC 2 MK.1 MARKI · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Kenmore Air Harbor Seaplane Base (W55) to Fishermans Bay Seaplane Base (81W)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA189
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument 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
- N6781L
- Operator
- Kenmore Air Harbor
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenmore Air Harbor Seaplane Base (W55), Seattle, WATo Fishermans Bay Seaplane Base (81W), LOPEZ, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 63 years (built 1953)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · descent
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering at low altitude for a water landing, the commercial pilot of the float-equipped airplane encountered low visibility due to ground fog. The pilot initiated a go-around, but the airplane impacted the water, bounced, and impacted the water a second time before coming to rest upright. The airplane subsequently sank and was not recovered. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The operator further reported that other company pilots who were flying on the day of the accident stated that the low visibility conditions were easily avoided by a slight course deviation.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to land in an area of low visibility and ground fog, which resulted in collision with water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA189
- Event ID
- 20160921X20513
- Case number
- WPR16LA189
- 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: 6c4ac0b7b7eb5fb3e14ed40fcc85337bf11278c5b2cb4ab5bd373de7814a948c; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:17:27.742Z.