ANC98LA095 · Piper PA-22
Piper PA-22 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Blair Lake Airport (2AK1) to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA095
- 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
- N1724P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blair Lake Airport (2AK1)To Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and a passenger were departing from a private airstrip. During the takeoff roll, the airplane's left main tire entered a rut, and veered to the left. The left main tire then entered an area of tall grass located along the left edge of the airstrip. The left wingtip then struck a tree. The airplane pivoted about 180 degrees to the left, and the right main landing gear collapsed. The right wing, and the right elevator, struck the ground. The airplane received additional damage to the tailwheel assembly, the fuselage, and the propeller.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable runway terrain for takeoff, and his failure to maintain directional control of the airplane. Factors in the accident were uneven/rutted terrain, and high vegetation along the runway edge.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA095
- Event ID
- 20001211X10449
- Case number
- ANC98LA095
- 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 1998-07-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 20ca6482a12ebe084c2464b87ede0dea9427b63294921bb53a9ead55b80b33c4; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:29:36.583Z.