ANC97LA053 · Piper PA-12
Piper PA-12 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Kasilof Airport (5KS) to McGahan Industrial Airpark (AK73)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA053
- 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-12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N92793
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kasilof Airport (5KS), Kasilof, AKTo McGahan Industrial Airpark (AK73)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Landing gear, wheel › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Nikiski, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot was practicing takeoff and landings in his airplane. The airplane had previously been equipped with fixed skis. The pilot removed the skis, and replaced them with large tundra tires. The pilot landed at an intermediate airport, and attempted to turn the airplane to the left in preparation for departure. The airplane was hard to turn, and the pilot got out of the airplane and physically moved the tail around to position the airplane for takeoff. After liftoff, the pilot noticed the left wheel and tire fall off the axle. He continued to his destination and landed on a gravel runway at a private airstrip. After touchdown, the right main gear collapsed, folding under the wheel. The airplane received damage to the main landing gear, the right wing spar, and right wing lift struts. An inspection of the airplane revealed the left wheel axle retaining nut was missing.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper installation of the landing gear wheel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA053
- Event ID
- 20001208X07643
- Case number
- ANC97LA053
- 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: af5758fdf35f7ed6783a3028022ca1bf91ac43b02f559d61bef3cf34db3ceefc; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:55:58.087Z.