ANC93LA055 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Delta Junction Airport (D66) to Delta Junction Airport (D66)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA055
- 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
- 1 · 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
- 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
- N2578P
- Operator
- Wolfe, Fredrick M. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delta Junction Airport (D66)To Delta Junction Airport (D66)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE REAR SEAT PAX, A COMMERCIALLY-RATED PILOT, STATED THAT WHILE FLYING AT A LOW ALTITUDE UP INTO A CANYON, HE TOLD THE FRONT SEAT PILOT TO TURN RIGHT & EXIT THE CANYON. THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED; THEN THE WINGS ROCKED, FOLLOWED BY AN ABRUPT & STEEP LEFT TURN, THEN IMPACT. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED AT THE 4,500-FT LEVEL OF A MOUNTAINSIDE, ABOUT 200 FT BELOW THE TOP. THE SLOPE WAS APRX 25-30 DEG. THE PAX ALSO STATED THAT JUST BEFORE THE WINGS ROCKED, THE PILOT WAS UP AGAINST THE LEFT FORWARD SIDE OF THE COCKPIT, AND SAID '...I CAN'T HELP IT, I CAN'T HELP IT.'
Probable cause
A LOSS OF CONTROL FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA055
- Event ID
- 20001211X12058
- Case number
- ANC93LA055
- 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: 484e799f8d532acdccc7237f650f76cc2c15507bb2625af376f6642715b36b1c; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:35:19.724Z.