ANC85LA010 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Port Heiden Airport (PTH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC85LA010
- 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-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
- N4313Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Port Heiden Airport (PTH), PORT HEIDEN, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO A STATE POLICE REPORT, THE PLT ASSAULTED HIS WIFE, THEN LOADED HIS TWO CHILDREN INTO THE ACFT AND FLEW TO A REFUELING AREA. HE REFUELED THE ACFT, THEN TOOKOFF & CRASHED APRX 1 MILE NORTH OF THE DEPARTURE RWY. A WITNESS REPORTED THAT AFTER THE ACFT LIFTED OFF THE RWY, IT ROSE SHARPLY AND APPEARED TO ALMOST STALL, THEN IT REGAINED A LEVEL FLT ATTITUDE AT ABOUT 100 TO 150 FT AGL BEFORE IT DISAPPEARED FROM HIS VIEW. SHORTLY AFTER THAT THE ACFT CRASHED. A CHECK OF THE PLT'S BLOOD SHOWED AN ALCOHOL LEVEL OF 0.128%.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC85LA010
- Event ID
- 20001214X41255
- Case number
- ANC85LA010
- 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 1984-10-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f3fac5d93baae3bf8e4326c9b907b624bb9f92e1d1479ec33f7bdb2c4b2ea030; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:25:25.923Z.