ANC23LA022 · Cessna U206F
Cessna U206F · Accident: loss of visual reference during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to McGrath Airport (MCG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC23LA022
- 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
- N9572G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo McGrath Airport (MCG), Mcgrath, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 51 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
- Loss of visual reference
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the runway had about 12 inches of new snow and the runway edge lights were not visible. During the takeoff run, in flat light conditions, he was unable to determine the centerline of the runway, and the airplane subsequently drifted left of centerline. The left main landing gear impacted a snow berm along the edge of the runway and the airplane spun around 90°, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during takeoff in flat light conditions which resulted in a loss of control and impact with a snow berm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC23LA022
- Event ID
- 20230215106736
- Case number
- ANC23LA022
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-02-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9f5e57f6883554c2c753d6eda65d935e394493429a1e403081fe3fb9ef032e96; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:20:27.804Z.