Branch River Air Service Cessna U206F accident
Cessna U206F · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to King Salmon Airport (PAKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC21LA066
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna U206F
- 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
- N9608G
- Operator
- Branch River Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo King Salmon Airport (PAKN), KING SALMON, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1972)
- 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
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 was attempting a takeoff in a float-equipped airplane. He estimated the gross weight of the airplane to be about 300 lbs. under the maximum gross weight limitation. He stated that after seeing the shoreline get “uncomfortably closer,” he wondered why the airplane was not getting airborne. The airplane subsequently impacted the shore, nosed over, and came to rest inverted on the beach. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The FAA publication Seaplane, Skiplane, and Float/Ski Equipped Helicopter Operations Handbook (FAA-H-8083-23) states that for seaplanes, as weight increases, the floats sink deeper into the water, creating a significant amount of water drag force during initial acceleration that results in a longer takeoff run.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to continue a takeoff attempt when it became evident that the airplane would not become airborne before reaching the departure end shoreline.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC21LA066
- Event ID
- 20210802103604
- Case number
- ANC21LA066
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-08-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f3f3944eeb90fe02b5cadf449cf2b4e0ae6b6b3a7feb78fd1047ca9213580ed1; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:21:36.506Z.