ANC83IA150 · Piper PA-31-350
Piper PA-31-350 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Kodiak Airport (ADQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC83IA150
- 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
- Incident
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N200VF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kodiak Airport (ADQ), Kodiak, 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Landing gear, main gear › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING TAKEOFF AT KODIAK, AK, THE WHEEL & LOWER SHAFT OF THE LEFT STRUT ASSY SEPARATED FROM THE ACFT. THE PLT STATED THAT WHEN HE WAS RETRACTING THE GEAR, HE FELT A BUMP & GOT AN UNSAFE GEAR LIGHT. HE IMMEDITAELY EXTENDED THE GEAR & FLEW BY THE TOWER & WAS INFORMED THAT THE LEFT GEAR APPEARED TO BE MISSING. THE PLT THEN FLEW TO ANCHORAGE WHERE HE COULD LAND ON A FOAMED RWY. HE WAS UNABLE TO RETRACT THE GEAR. BEFORE LANDING, HE SHUT DOWN & SECURED THE LEFT ENG. THE LEFT WING RECEIVED MINOR DAMAGE DURING THE LANDING. AN EXAM OF THE TOP MAIN GEAR BEARING REVEALED THAT 2 OF 4 RETAINING PINS, PN 01821-06, WERE MISSING & THE OTHER 2 WERE SHEARED OFF. AN EXAM OF THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR RETAINING PINS REVEALED THAT 2 HAD CRACKS IN THE NECK REGION. EARLIER ON THE SAME DAY OF THE INCIDENT, THE ACFT HAD AN UNSAFE GEAR INDICATION. MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL HAD INSPECTED, REMOVED, CLEANED, GREASED & REINSTALLED ALL ACTUATING RODS & HAD ADJUSTED THE LEFT GEAR UPLOCK. THE ACFT WAS THEN RELEASED FOR A TEST FLT, ON WHICH, THE INCIDENT OCCURRED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC83IA150
- Event ID
- 20001214X43969
- Case number
- ANC83IA150
- 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 1983-08-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7fb8b542f1f01ff7c39d2816e4a4a77b99e371703b7b574bd80392ea8cb20dff; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:31:03.553Z.