ANC96TA148 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96TA148
- 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
- N4372A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF)To 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Flightcrew › Emergency procedure, improper
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel tank selector position › Improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Initially, the instructor pilot (CFI) was seated in the front of the airplane, and the commercial certificated dual student pilot was seated in the rear. The purpose of flight was to instruct the student in glider tow operations. They performed two glider tow operations and decided to change seats. The student exited the rear of the airplane and stood outside, while the CFI climbed over the front seat into the rear. This was accomplished while the engine was running. A third glider tow operation was accomplished, then while climbing during the fourth glider tow operation, the engine lost power. The pilots selected a muskeg field for a forced landing. At about tree height, the engine surged to full power and then stopped again. The pilots missed landing the airplane in the muskeg field. They landed the wheel airplane in a small lake, and it sank. Examination of the cockpit before the airplane was raised showed the fuel selector positioned between the left and right fuel tank positions. Postaccident inspection of the airplane and its systems disclosed no evidence of a preexisting mechanical anomaly. The engine was supplied with fresh fuel and started. It ran normally. The fuel selector was moved to the position where it was discovered, while submerged. The engine then ran about two minutes and stopped.
Probable cause
loss of engine power due to fuel starvation, which resulted from improper positioning of the fuel tank selector; inadequate supervision by the flight instructor (CFI); and the flight crew's improper emergency procedure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96TA148
- Event ID
- 20001208X06675
- Case number
- ANC96TA148
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b235f975a2ccbf99f7c38ed41dc602d5600d708694fc30b5b073184ee199c898; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:13:50.777Z.