ANC93LA089 · Piper PA-3
Piper PA-3 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Merrill Field (MRI) to Goose Bay Airport (Z40)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA089
- 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-3
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-3
- 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
- N91952
- Operator
- Tanner, John · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Field (MRI), MERRILL FIELD, AKTo Goose Bay Airport (Z40), GOOSE BAY, 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
- 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
- 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
- Dual student › Flight controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUCTIONAL FLIGHT, WITH THE STUDENT PILOT AT THE CONTROLS, HAD JUST COMPLETED SEVERAL FULL STOP WHEEL LANDINGS AT THE AIRPORT. ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT, THE STUDENT RETARDED THE THROTTLE TO IDLE AND BEGAN ERRATIC LONGITUDINAL CONTROL ON THE LANDING ROLLOUT. THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT INITIATED LEFT RUDDER TO STRAIGHTEN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL AND APPLIED ELEVATOR CONTROL TO GET THE TAILWHEEL ON THE GROUND AT THE SAME TIME THAT THE STUDENT DEPRESSED THE BRAKE PEDALS. THE AIRPLANE PROCEEDED TO GO UP ONTO ITS NOSE AND OVER ONTO ITS BACK. PRIOR TO THE MISHAP FLIGHT, THE INSTRUCTOR TOLD THE STUDENT THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS EQUIPPED WITH DUAL PUCK CLEVELAND BRAKES, THAT THE BRAKES WERE VERY SENSITIVE, AND AS SUCH TO STAY OFF THE BRAKES.
Probable cause
THE IMPROPER USE OF THE FLIGHT CONTROLS BY THE STUDENT PILOT AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE CFI PILOT-IN-COMMAND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA089
- Event ID
- 20001211X12504
- Case number
- ANC93LA089
- 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: 024db49eff9eece0be3483f0c2b9b487b4f49bbdbce76cf816fd5dccdca86105; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:55:36.334Z.