ANC92LA004 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: nose over during takeoff
From Z15 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC92LA004
- 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
Cessna 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N4606C
- Operator
- Fitzgibbon, Paul Gratton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Z15To 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 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS PRACTICING SOLO TAKEOFF AND LANDINGS WITH THE INSTRUCTOR SUPERVISING FROM THE RAMP. AFTER A NUMBER OF TAKEOFF AND LANDINGS, THE STUDENT PILOT TAXIED TO THE INSTRUCTOR'S LOCATION AND THE INSTRUCTOR THEN TOLD HIM TO CONTINUE PRACTICING. THE STUDENT PILOT TAXIED TO THE RUNWAY AND BEGAN HIS TAKEOFF ROLL. THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE AFTER ONLY A PARTIAL POWER APPLICATION BY THE PILOT AND BEGAN TO VEER TO THE LEFT AND HE APPLIED RIGHT RUDDER. HE STATED THE AIRPLANE DID NOT RESPOND AND HE ABORTED THE TAKEOFF BY REDUCING THE THROTTLE. HE STATED HE FAILED TO REMOVE THE RIGHT RUDDER AND THE AIRPLANE IMMEDIATELY MADE A SHARP RIGHT TURN. THE LEFT WING STRUCK THE RUNWAY AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL DURING THE TAKEOFF RUN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC92LA004
- Event ID
- 20001212X18224
- Case number
- ANC92LA004
- 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 1991-10-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4426c38c57af19778fc3f8b4169a164db63e1844a0a3b652cfb5ea048b912ee7; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:37:12.380Z.