Cajun Air Cessna U206B accident
Cessna U206B · Accident: hard landing
From Barataria, LA to Chandeleur Islands, LA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA150
- 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 U206B
- 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
- N7896S
- Operator
- Cajun Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Barataria, LATo Chandeleur Islands, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the on-demand passenger flight reported that they departed for a fishing trip to the destination island. Upon arrival, the pilot flew alongside the island to determine where to land and fish. The pilot said that the water conditions on west side of the island were stirred up due to the wind, but it was the only area to land on because of ocean swells on the east side of the island. The north side of the island had water conditions that were the least stirred up and was an area that he had landed on numerous occasions. He elected to land on the north side of the island between two sand bars, which were protected from the wind. Prior to the landing attempt, the pilot overflew the intended landing area three times to ensure that the water was deep enough and calm enough to land on. Upon touchdown, the airplane bounced off a wave and the pilot did not increase engine power to initiate a go-around because he thought that due to the airplane’s weight and height above water, it would only result in settling into the waves with increased engine power. The pilot maintained the airplane attitude to avoid an aerodynamic stall. The airplane then impacted a larger wave, which fractured the left float and the airplane settled nose down on its left side in the water. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left horizontal stabilizer and elevator. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot stated the accident could have been prevented if he had decided to return to the point of origin rather than attempting to land.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to attempt a landing on rough water conditions, which resulted in an impact with the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA150
- Event ID
- 20240408194050
- Case number
- CEN24LA150
- 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, 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: 0151b39f32682d1e9fd817e222a8b2f5142724cf1a840f94987aa54768ff538c; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:39:03.797Z.