ANC97LA103 · Piper PA-22
Piper PA-22 · Accident: abrupt maneuver during takeoff
From Chena Marina Airport (AK28) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA103
- 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-22
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N4520A
- Operator
- Alfred B. Shipley · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chena Marina Airport (AK28)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
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Evasive maneuver, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was departing a private airstrip toward the south, and had just obtained lift-off airspeed. The passenger and pilot noticed an unidentified object run across the runway under the main wheels. The pilot thought the object was a dog or child. The pilot abruptly pulled the control stick aft. At the same time, the passenger depressed the right rudder. Both actions were an attempt to miss hitting the object. The right wing struck the runway, and the airplane ground looped and nosed over.
Probable cause
The pilot's initiation of an abrupt, evasive maneuver, and his failure to maintain directional control of the airplane. Factors in the accident were an undetermined object crossing the runway and the passenger's rudder control interference during the evasive maneuver.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA103
- Event ID
- 20001208X08277
- Case number
- ANC97LA103
- 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 1997-07-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 47b4d418c6226785f2bde8fd8cf3e881c9defab4c102ffe212421695e4f207be; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:20:23.652Z.