ANC98LA164 · Grumman S2F-1
Grumman S2F-1 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Wasilla Airport (IYS) to IYS
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA164
- 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
Grumman S2F-1
- Aircraft type
- Grumman S2
- 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
- N8115V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wasilla Airport (IYS), NEW WASILLA, AKTo IYS
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Hydraulic system, seal › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Wasilla, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During the landing roll, the right brake seal failed on the experimental category, ex-military airplane, releasing the hydraulic fluid and subsequently rendering the brake unusable. The airplane encountered soft earth as it began to drift left, and ultimately departed the left side of the 3,700 feet long by 75 feet wide gravel runway. The nose gear then collapsed. The right brake system had been overhauled and the right brake seal replaced 15 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the recently overhauled right brake seal resulting in a total loss of brake fluid, failure of the right brake system, and subsequent inability of the pilot to utilize the brake. A contributing factor was the soft terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA164
- Event ID
- 20001211X10994
- Case number
- ANC98LA164
- 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: a6c750be8653d39124c550a735838055ef3790e234994a7583b5f5e226c59631; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:41:36.262Z.