ANC17CA038 · de Havilland DHC 2 MARKI
Bay Air de Havilland DHC 2 MARKI · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From OZ3 · Dilllingham, AK to OZ3 · Dilllingham, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC17CA038
- 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 MARKI
- 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
- N364RA
- Operator
- Bay Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OZ3 · Dilllingham, AKTo OZ3 · Dilllingham, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1951)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/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 systems
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was departing on a postmaintenance flight check in a float-equipped airplane from a short water lane at a remote, unimproved seaplane base. While taxiing for departure, he left the wing flaps in the "up" position to aid in turning the airplane on the water. After aligning the airplane for the takeoff run, he applied full power, and the airplane accelerated onto the step. While attempting to rotate, he realized that he had forgotten to reset the wing flaps to the "takeoff" position. He attempted to reset the manually operated, hydraulically actuated wing flaps, but the incorrect flap setting led to a longer-than-normal takeoff run, and the airplane subsequently impacted the water lane's far bank, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and left-wing strut. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to set the wing flaps to the "takeoff" position, which resulted in a longer-than-normal takeoff run and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC17CA038
- Event ID
- 20170721X74752
- Case number
- ANC17CA038
- 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: c222a1d593a8572b30fda7f8c69e2af2d9cfd2a92870ad36df1d28a8e2f98873; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:34:39.207Z.