ANC24LA049 · de Havilland BEAVER L-20A (DHC-2)
Talon Air Service de Havilland BEAVER L-20A (DHC-2) · Accident during initial climb
From Port Alsworth, AK (private airstrip) to Soldotna, AK (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC24LA049
- 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 BEAVER L-20A (DHC-2)
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland BEAVER L-20A
- 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
- N4957
- Operator
- Talon Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Port Alsworth, AK (private airstrip)To Soldotna, AK (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 71 years (built 1953)
- 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 power plant
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 and five passengers departed from a remote lake in the float-equipped airplane. The pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff, he felt the manifold pressure decrease, and he advanced the propeller and throttle controls. The engine initially responded with an increase in rpm and manifold pressure but subsequently lost total power. The pilot performed a forced landing into a heavily wooded area, and the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and wings. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal engine operation. Passengers reported that the pilot made an aggressive steep turn at low altitude with no change in engine noise from takeoff to impact with terrain. Based on available evidence, it is likely that the engine sustained a partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC24LA049
- Event ID
- 20240611194439
- Case number
- ANC24LA049
- 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 2024-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f939b1592ef17cfeefc1f328d1c98a3fe837660a85058b28a44645580f4e08bf; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:52:40.023Z.