Rusts Flying Service de Havilland DHC-2T accident
de Havilland DHC-2T · Accident en route
From Talkeetna Airport (TKA) to Talkeetna Airport (TKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC24LA064
- 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
de Havilland DHC-2T
- 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
- N535KT
- Operator
- Rusts Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AKTo Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AK
- 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
- En route
- 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 propeller/rotor
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 was conducting an air tour flight when the airplane’s propeller rpm decreased and the propeller subsequently stopped producing noticeable thrust. The pilot cycled the propeller but the propeller rpm continued to decrease.. The pilot performed a forced landing, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage and wings. The pilot reported no mechanical issues with the airplane other than the loss of propeller pitch control and subsequent loss of thrust. Postaccident examination and testing of the propeller and overspeed governors revealed that they performed within their respective manufacturer’s specifications, and no abnormalities were observed that would have prevented normal operation. The engine was completely disassembled and all damage noted was consistent with impact. The cause of the propeller rpm becoming uncontrollable could not be determined.
Probable cause
An in-flight loss of thrust due to an uncommanded feathering of the propeller for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC24LA064
- Event ID
- 20240713194683
- Case number
- ANC24LA064
- 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 2024-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 47432591d9101cb85e50b05355395e4db51eea57db4c4c4160fbef4737297e6b; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:02:11.809Z.