ANC95LA070 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Big Lake Airport (BGQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC95LA070
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Piper PA-18
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N8570C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Big Lake Airport (BGQ), Big Lake, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Nikiski, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED HE WAS PRACTICING BEACH TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS. DURING THE ACCIDENT TAKEOFF ATTEMPT, HE SAID THE AIRPLANE HIT A BUMP ON THE BEACH AND TURNED TOWARDS THE WATER. HE SAID HE PULLED THE AIRPLANE INTO THE AIR WITH INSUFFICIENT AIRSPEED, AND WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN A STEADY FLIGHT STATE. THE AIRPLANE SOON STALLED AND CRASHED INTO THE WATER. BOTH THE PILOT AND THE SOLE PASSENGER ABOARD WERE ABLE TO SWIM TO SHORE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S PREMATURE LIFTOFF AND SUBSEQUENT INADVERTENT STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC95LA070
- Event ID
- 20001207X03581
- Case number
- ANC95LA070
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-06-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0cdab6c0cfd8776bd096c5e3b50c3cee300817b8d1e092af2a07af7a8c7c5053; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:51:06.564Z.