ANC98LA127 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Merle K (Mudhole) Smith Airport (CDV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA127
- 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 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N180WH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Merle K (Mudhole) Smith Airport (CDV), 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was attempting a southerly departure from a 1,300 feet long gravel airstrip in a tailwheel equipped airplane. He stated that during the takeoff roll, midway down the airstrip, the airplane's left wheel dug into an area of soft ground. The airplane veered to the left, and the left wing struck a stand of trees that borders the airstrip. The airplane pivoted about 90 degrees to the left, and the right main landing gear collapsed. The airplane's right wing struck the ground, and sustained substantial damage. The pilot noted that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff. Factors associated with the accident were soft airstrip conditions, and trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA127
- Event ID
- 20001211X10747
- Case number
- ANC98LA127
- 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: 41af5cc7862fddd3f6081570b68c82ae2bd0a12bbb9c2b1145cb7ccfd8560489; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:04:01.418Z.