ERA23LA385 · Cessna T206 H
Cessna T206 H · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Toledo Executive Airport (TDZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA385
- 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
Cessna T206 H
- 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
- N34PL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Toledo Executive Airport (TDZ), Millbury, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff the airline transport pilot and pilot-rated passenger of the amphibious airplane performed landings at an airport and on a river, performed airwork, then proceeded west, where when near a river, both looked for wires and poles but neither saw any. The pilot landed uneventfully on the river and while on the step he initiated takeoff. Although the pilot was looking and did not see any wires or poles associated with wires that spanned the river, the pilot-rated passenger spotted unmarked powerlines spanning the river immediately before impact with them during the initial climb and called them out to the pilot. The airplane collided with the wire(s), and the airplane pitched down and impacted the river resulting in substantial damage to the right wing, right wing lift strut, and aft empennage. The pilot stated there were no preimpact failures or malfunctions of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to detect and avoid unmarked powerline(s) while attempting to take off from a river.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA385
- Event ID
- 20231002193169
- Case number
- ERA23LA385
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 40389e9f949aaf616aad7bfd215940c19a0d81b44b582124c7eb4ad8d0ee729a; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:10:45.679Z.