ANC24LA068 · de Havilland BEAVER U-6A
Rainbow River Lodge Aviation de Havilland BEAVER U-6A · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Kokhanok, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC24LA068
- 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 U-6A
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland BEAVER U-6A
- 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
- N65223
- Operator
- Rainbow River Lodge Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Kokhanok, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1955)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 reported that, during takeoff in a float-equipped airplane, he was on step and maneuvered the airplane around a bend in the river, facing into the sun. The pilot reported that he was unable to see due to the glare of the sun. The airplane drifted to the left and the left wingtip caught bushes on the left bank of the river, pulling the airplane up onto shore which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing strut. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during takeoff. Contributing to the accident was sun glare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC24LA068
- Event ID
- 20240720194727
- Case number
- ANC24LA068
- 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: 29d0434058080c646b8ba3028121b51af1b561e2627a4c8bd98f290714e0ab84; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:03:47.447Z.