NTSB ANC23LA052 — 2023-07-11 · McCarthy, Alaska, United States

Current FAA registration · N814DW

Make / Model: DEHAVILLAND DHC-2
Year of manufacture: 1949 · 74 years old at event
Engine: P&W R-985 SERIES (450 hp)
Seats / Engines: 8 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date: 20050809
ADS-B equipped: Yes — Mode-S AB1898

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

N814DW DEHAVILLAND DHC-2 None

Probable cause & findings

A failure of the right brake caliper bolts during landing, which resulted in a runway excursion and subsequent impact with terrain.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that during the landing roll on a gravel-covered airstrip, the airplane veered left, went through an embankment, and came to rest upright. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the right brake caliper bolts failed in overload. The lower bolt was broken in half, the upper bolt was not located, and the brake caliper was located in brush. Given that the airplane is routinely operated from rough, uneven, gravel-covered, off airport sites, it is likely that the brake caliper and bolts sustained impact damage, resulting in the failure of the attachment hardware. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

— Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Landing gear brakes system-Failure

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2023_ANC23LA052.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Search this event elsewhere

External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). All research papers