The aircraft stalled and fell back onto the ice after failing to become airborne while attempting to take-off from a small lake near Snag, Yukon Territory, about 250 miles north-east of Whitehorse. The investigation revealed that the pilot had had minimal training on the Dakota on skis, on a hard-packed snow surface north of Edmonton. At the accident site, the surface was 14 inches of snow on top of slush, and he found that the skis seemed to dig when he lifted the tail during take-off. He therefore ended up taking off in the three-point attitude, inadvertently allowing the nose to pitch up excessively after lift-off, resulting in a stall and subsequent crash.