The de Havilland DHC-3 Otter that crashed in Soldotna, Alaska, in 2013 was overweight and out of CG limits, the NTSB said in its probable cause report this week. Contributing to the accident was the FAA’s “failure to require weight and balance documentation for this type of air taxi flight,” the NTSB said. The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Soldotna, Alaska, on July 7, 2013, killing the pilot and 9 passengers. The flight, headed for a lodge less than 100 miles away, carried two families, luggage, and food and supplies loaded by the pilot, whoowned the Otter.
Video taken by a passenger on a personal device was found in the wreckage. The NTSB’s report describes the video indicating the DHC-3’s angle of attack steadily increasing and its airspeed decaying — from about 68 mph to 44 mph over about 8.5 seconds. Eleven seconds after takeoff, an apparent stall occurred and the airplane rolled to the right and crashed seconds later, the report said. Investigators determined that the cargo weight on board was about 418 pounds higher than the weight listed on the load manifest. This resulted in an aft-CG condition that would not have allowed the pilot to recover from the stall with full pitch-down input, the NTSB reported.
