ANC97TA148 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97TA148
- 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-18-150
- 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
- N7054
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Bethel Airport (BET), 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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, normal brake system › Locked
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Pressure excessive
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 29-inch tundra tire equipped airplane was being landed on a wet, sandy, gravel bar. The pilot stated that the back seat heater had been blowing hot air on the brake master cylinders, which had just been serviced. At touchdown, the airplane began to nose over. The pilot attempted to add power and keep the tail down with airflow, but the airplane continued over onto its back. Skid marks were measured for 154 feet from the touchdown point.
Probable cause
The excessive pressure in the brake system resulting from heating of the recently serviced hydraulic fluid in the brake master cylinders, and the resultant locked brakes and inability to maintain directional control of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97TA148
- Event ID
- 20001208X08780
- Case number
- ANC97TA148
- 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: e29d11ed68598cf0fdd5e7cd84c5624c3bb22c56f6c7ff2c8b37aebd49acc8e7; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:38:56.776Z.