Wrangell Mountain Avn Piper PA-18 accident
Piper PA-18 · Accident: nose over during landing
From Mc Carthy Airport (MXY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA141
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N1200A
- Operator
- Wrangell Mountain Avn
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mc Carthy Airport (MXY), MCCARTHY, AKTo not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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
- Nose over
- 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 › Brakes(normal), excessive
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT/OPERATOR STATED THAT HE WAS ON A FLIGHT TO TRANSPORT A PARTY OF TWO TO HUNT SHEEP. THE DESTINATION WAS A HIGH ALTITUDE, ROUGH STRIP AT A REMOTE LOCATION. THE AIRPLANE WAS A PIPER PA-18 EQUIPPED WITH TUNDRA TIRES AND A 3RD SEAT, BUT THE PILOT STATED THAT HE WAS HAULING ONE PASSENGER AT A TIME. THE PILOT STATED THAT WHEN HE LANDED, THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN HARD AND BOUNCED. HE SAID THAT HE APPLIED BRAKES TOO HARD, AND THE AIRPLANE 'FLIPPED' NEAR THE END OF THE ROLL-OUT. THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN MODIFIED WITH THE TUNDRA TIRES, 3RD SEAT, AND A 160 HP ENGINE WITH AN INAPPLICABLE STC.
Probable cause
IMPROPER PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT, CONCERNING THE LANDING AT THE REMOTE STRIP, WHICH RESULTED IN A NOSE OVER, WHILE USING HEAVY BRAKES TO STOP. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE ROUGH/UNEVEN CONDITION OF THE LANDING STRIP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA141
- Event ID
- 20001211X13031
- Case number
- ANC93LA141
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: f2313381c22956696ad5aacb0b0a7aaaf6c27212e9ebcbf29b8ca12f3c5c0b0a; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:31:46.644Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N1200A; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.