ANC89GA055 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Selawik Airport (WLK) to Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC89GA055
- 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
- Government
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument 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
- N7085
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Selawik Airport (WLK), Selawik, AKTo Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), Kotzebue, 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT, A STATE FISH AND WILDLIFE PROTECTION OFFICER, CONTINUED VFR INTO IFR CONDITIONS THEN LOST CONTROL AND CRASHED THE AIRPLANE WHILE TRYING TO EXECUTE A 180 DEGREE TURN BACK TO VFR CONDITION. THE CRASH WAS ABOUT TWO HOURS BEFORE SUNSET AND 14 NM FROM HIS HOME BASE FROM WHICH THE PILOT HAD DEPARTED OVER 8 HOURS EARLIER. HIS PVT PILOT CERTIFICATE HAD A LIMITATION PROHIBITING NIGHT FLIGHT. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT EQUIPPED, & THE PILOT WAS NOT RATED FOR, INSTRUMENT FLIGHT. ALTHOUGH AVAILABLE AT THE POINT OF DEPARTURE AND ENROUTE, NO WX BRIEFING WAS OBTAINED EITHER PRIOR TO OR DURING THE FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO IFR CONDITIONS AND FAILED TO MAINTAIN THE ALTITUDE. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING AND THE DETERIORATING WEATHER CONDITIONS WHICH WERE ENCOUNTERED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC89GA055
- Event ID
- 20001213X28012
- Case number
- ANC89GA055
- 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 1989-04-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d40dc05729b52476baa573998df4c0719ea88d163ecdb36991dec85761ae0e9d; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:23:09.905Z.