ANC95FA104 · Cessna 172A
Cessna 172A and Piper PA-18 · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC95FA104
- 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
- 2 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 172A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N9827T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Naknek Airport (5NK), AKTo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · 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
- N7531K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Naknek Airport (5NK), AKTo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES OBSERVED TWO AIRPLANES, A CESSNA 172A AND A PIPER PA-18, BOTH EQUIPPED WITH FLOATS, COLLIDE WITH EACH OTHER WHILE BOTH WERE MANEUVERING IN FLIGHT ABOUT 400 FEET ABOVE THE WATER. AFTER THE COLLISION, THE AIRPLANES BROKE APART AND FELL INTO THE WATER. THE PILOTS OF BOTH AIRPLANES WERE SPOTTING FOR FISH. ONE EYEWITNESS LOCATED DIRECTLY BELOW THE COLLISION ON A FISHING VESSEL OBSERVED THE PIPER PA-18 STRIKE THE CESSNA 172A FROM BEHIND. HE REPORTED THAT THE CESSNA 172A WAS IN A LEFT TURN AT THE TIME, AND THE PIPER PA-18 WAS LEVEL. AN EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT FLOAT AND PROPELLER OF THE PIPER PA-18 IMPACTED THE UNDERSIDE OF THE LEFT WING OF THE CESSNA 172A. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS WERE FOUND DURING THE WRECKAGE EXAMINATION. WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE DAY VFR, AND BOTH PILOTS WERE WELL-RESTED. TOXICOLOGY TESTS SHOWED THE PIPER PA-18 PILOT'S BLOOD HAD 85 NG/ML OF CODEINE, AND THE PRESENCE OF AN OPIATE WAS DETECTED IN HIS URINE.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE VISUAL LOOKOUT BY THE PILOT OF THE PIPER PA-18. THE PA-18 PILOT'S DIVERTED ATTENTION WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC95FA104
- Event ID
- 20001207X03829
- Case number
- ANC95FA104
- 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 1995-07-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b0a4d7a00a9bedf1c2f7bff57a959ac3ee129fc7007034e2ee5a4b0753e21ca7; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:42:00.014Z.