ANC97LA130 · Cessna 170A
Cessna 170A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Skelton Airport (AK04) to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA130
- 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
Cessna 170A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N9540A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skelton Airport (AK04)To Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was departing to the west from a remote airport in a tail-wheel equipped airplane. He reported that initially, there was a left quartering wind (about 25 degrees left of the runway heading) at about 25 knots. During the takeoff roll, the pilot held the airplane on the ground for about 1,100 feet and attained an airspeed of 70 MPH. He indicated the airplane suddenly veered off the left side of the runway. The right main landing gear collapsed, and the right wing struck the ground. After the accident, the pilot noticed the wind was blowing from the north at an estimated velocity of 25 knots. The Facility Directory for the airport included a caution for strong winds, severe turbulence, and possible wind shear.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions, and his failure to maintain directional control of the airplane, which resulted in a ground swerve and overload failure of the right main landing gear. Factors related to the accident were: the crosswind, and sudden windshift.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA130
- Event ID
- 20001208X08539
- Case number
- ANC97LA130
- 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 1997-08-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cadb8ef9fa1adafbea3ba54e203a8bbc50227d04fa0db4222ef32833543ff410; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:46:32.318Z.