ANC23LA054 · de Havilland DHC-2 MK. I(L20A)
de Havilland DHC-2 MK. I(L20A) · Accident during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Dillingham, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC23LA054
- 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
- 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 MK. I(L20A)
- 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
- N302BL
- Operator
- Bristol Bay Lodge
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Dillingham, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1954)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
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 stated that moments after takeoff from a lake he heard a loud bang, and the airplane impacted the water. The passengers stated that after takeoff there was a sound similar to a cable snap or a hammer hitting metal. The airplane made a hard left turn, and the left wing impacted the water. Postaccident examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane came to rest fragmented in a lake and the floats were not recovered; therefore, the fly wires and floats could not be examined, and the reason for the loss of control could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of control during initial climb for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC23LA054
- Event ID
- 20230720192671
- Case number
- ANC23LA054
- 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 2023-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 72c8d403438ed340484f735be0953c0ef417b7bc250626d65fe91671307ca78a; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:53:08.548Z.