ANC91LA150 · Piper PA-22-160
Piper PA-22-160 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Red Devil Airport (RDV) to Soldotna Airport (SXQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC91LA150
- 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-22-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N8143D
- Operator
- Daniel C. Herman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Red Devil Airport (RDV), RED DEVIL, AKTo Soldotna Airport (SXQ), Soldotna, 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE UNLICENSED PILOT STATED THAT AFTER MAKING A LOW PASS OVER A REMOTE HUNTING STRIP, HE ADDED POWER TO MAKE A GO-AROUND. THE AIRPLANE'S NOSE PITCHED UP STEEPLY, AND A CROSSWIND CAUSED THE AIRPLANE TO TURN AND FLY INTO A CANYON. TO AVOID A STALL, HE REDUCED POWER AND PUSHED THE NOSE DOWN. HE THEN ENCOUNTERED A DOWNDRAFT WHICH PUSHED THE AIRPLANE DOWN INTO THE TREES. THE PILOT HAD PURCHASED THE AIRPLANE 2-3 DAYS PREVIOUSLY AND HAD ONLY ABOUT 6 HOURS IN THIS TYPE AIRPLANE. HE REPORTED HAVING A TOTAL OF 500 FLIGHT HOURS, OF WHICH ONLY 5 WERE WITH AN INSTRUCTOR. SEVERAL MODIFICATIONS HAD BEEN PERFORMED ON THE AIRPLANE, TWO OF WHICH WERE NOT APPROVED. THE PILOT SAID HIS LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH SOME OF THE AIRPLANE'S UNUSUAL HANDLING CHARACTERISTICS CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ATTAIN A PROPER CLIMB. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH THE AIRPLANE, HIS INADEQUATE TRAINING IN THAT MODEL AIRPLANE, HIS LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE, HIS INFLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION, HIS OVERCONFIDENCE IN HIS PERSONAL ABILITY, THE UNFAVORABLE WIND, AND THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC91LA150
- Event ID
- 20001212X18009
- Case number
- ANC91LA150
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-09-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 73596cceced0441864fe427fdc45d17eaef30da744e659d4bd968f0c0fde3f39; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:19:29.645Z.