ANC98LA023 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From South Naknek Number 2 Airport (WSN) to Naknek Airport (5NK)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA023
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-32-300 Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N38186
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Naknek Number 2 Airport (WSN), SOUTH NAKNEK, AKTo Naknek Airport (5NK)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had landed on the east/west runway at the rural airport, and was back-taxiing to a ramp/roadway area. The ramp area is 'L' shaped, and located between the approach end of the east/west runway, and the approach end of a second, northwest/southeast runway. The pilot was planning to stop the airplane near a waiting school bus that was parked in the ramp area. Movement through the area is not controlled. A second airplane was waiting in the same ramp area to taxi to a fuel pump. Its engine was running at idle power. The pilot of the second airplane reported he planned to wait until the accident airplane was clear of the runway before proceeding, and did not intend to fly. The pilot of the accident airplane taxied into the ramp area, but did not see the second airplane. The pilot of the accident airplane reported that flat light conditions made it difficult to see the second airplane that was painted white and blue. The left wing of the accident airplane collided with the turning propeller of the second airplane. The Alaska Airport/Facility Directory contains remarks about the airport that include the airport is unattended. It says, in part: 'The runway condition is not monitored. Uncontrolled vehicular traffic on runways. No line of sight between runways or waterways. Aircraft on east side of runway 14/32 may be in safety area.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate visual lookout. Factors in the accident were flat lighting conditions, and inadequate airport facilities.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA023
- Event ID
- 20001211X09506
- Case number
- ANC98LA023
- 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: f55684b43e69a7583615b3426fe9a3a3b7457e147543419e8af4a6687fe21eb2; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:12:37.238Z.