Rust's Flying Service de Havilland DHC-2 MK 1 accident
de Havilland DHC-2 MK 1 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD) to Tutka Bay, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC25LA085
- 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-2 MK 1
- 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
- N232KT
- Operator
- Rust's Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD), Anchorage, AKTo Tutka Bay, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 77 years (built 1948)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to a remote fishing lodge in a float-equipped airplane, one of the passengers reported that the pilot saw a pack of wolves chasing a herd of caribou. The passenger said that the pilot then reduced the airspeed and entered a right-hand, descending orbit to allow all the passengers to see the animals below. The pilot reported that, during a right-hand turn, the airspeed was indicating about 75 knots and the airplane’s altitude was about 500 ft above ground level (agl), when the airplane encountered a downdraft and it began to descend. He added engine power and attempted to climb, but he realized he was not going to be able to clear the rising terrain ahead and performed a forced landing to an area of rock and tundra-covered terrain. During the forced landing, the airplane’s float struts and spreaderbars collapsed, resulting in substantial damage to the airplane’s fuselage. A review of archived Federal Aviation Administration Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data revealed that the airplane entered the orbits at 300 feet agl and the groundspeed was about 80 knots. As the airplane exited the multiple orbits, it was about 97 feet agl, while traveling at 58 knots groundspeed. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from rising terrain while maneuvering at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC25LA085
- Event ID
- 20250809200744
- Case number
- ANC25LA085
- 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: fd349f20fc07175403640951dc75be1e4a7431e06d54be125e8cceb27ecfccb6; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:11:42.118Z.