ANC90LA002 · Piper PA-32
Kusko Aviation Piper PA-32 · Accident: undershoot during landing
From Quinhagak Airport (AQH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90LA002
- 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-32
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N38393
- Operator
- Kusko Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quinhagak Airport (AQH), Quinhagak, 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 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED HE WAS LANDING ON A 1700' AIRSTRIP THAT HE HAD ROUTINELY USED. HE SAID HE LANDED SLIGHTLY SHORT & BELOW THE RUNWAY GRADE, STRIKING THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR ON THE LIP OF THE RUNWAY. THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR FAILED & SEPARATED FROM THE WING, DAMAGING THE WING SPAR. THE PILOT SAID HE HAD SOME DIFFICULTY WITH THE APPROACH TO LANDING DUE TO SUNGLARE. ON A SUBSEQUENT APPLICATION FOR MED CERT, DATED 3/28/90, THE PLT RPRTD 8000 HRS OF FLT TIME.
Probable cause
THE PILOT MISJUDGED HIS ALTITUDE AND DISTANCE FROM THE RUNWAY DRG THE APPROACH, WHICH RESULTED IN A PREMATURE TOUCHDOWN AND FAILURE OF THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR, WHEN IT HIT THE RUNWAY LIP. THE SUNGLARE AND LACK OF VISUAL CUES (VISUAL PERCEPTION) WERE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC90LA002
- Event ID
- 20001213X29511
- Case number
- ANC90LA002
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bb24de233c8424763e69139b73c47196f38fb368ebc9eeb83ebb39a362818831; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:06:34.697Z.