WPR20CA232 · Cessna U206 G
Bik Air Cessna U206 G · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Nenana, AK (private airstrip) to Gold King Creek Airport (AK7)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA232
- 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 G
- 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
- N756DJ
- Operator
- Bik Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nenana, AK (private airstrip)To Gold King Creek Airport (AK7), Fairbanks, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was performing a soft field takeoff at a private dirt airstrip with a right crosswind. During the takeoff roll, staying on the left side of the airstrip to clear a known dip, the nosewheel lifted off the ground quickly as expected, however he now had no turning ability. The pilot utilized right rudder input to compensate for the cross wind, but the ground speed was too low and he did not have enough rudder authority to keep the left wing from impacting a parked bulldozer on the side of the airstrip. The airplane's left wing was substantially damaged.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during a soft field takeoff on a dirt airstrip, which resulted in an impact with a vehicle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA232
- Event ID
- 20200722X63512
- Case number
- WPR20CA232
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-07-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1f97c7a138fdf301d365ffda9614be7b726854e349f5555b768e5e317d18d059; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:15:12.039Z.