ANC01LA078 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ) to Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC01LA078
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-18-150
- 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
- N6881B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ), Palmer, AKTo Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ), Palmer, 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated private pilot, with one passenger aboard, was departing from a 800-feet long airstrip. A witness to the accident reported that just after takeoff the accident airplane's engine began to run rough and lose power. The witness said that it appeared that the pilot was trying to turn the airplane around in an attempt to return to the airstrip, and subsequently struck the surface of an open field next to the airstrip. An FAA airworthiness inspector from the local FSDO, traveled to the accident scene and examined the airplane. He reported that the airplane came to rest upright with the left wing still attached to the fuselage, but the right wing was torn from the airplane during the impact. Both wing fuel tanks remained intact and were not breached, and the fuel selector valve was selected to the right fuel tank. The right fuel tank was empty, but the left tank was approximately 2/3 full. The FAA inspector interviewed a neighbor that lives close to the accident airstrip who responded to the accident site, just after the accident. The neighbor stated that in the process of assisting rescue personnel, he moved the right wing away from the fuselage. In the process of moving the severed wing, he noted that the right wing fuel tank was empty, with no visible signs of postaccident spillage. While at the accident site an Alaska State Trooper removed the right wing fuel cap, and verified that the right wing fuel tank was empty.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation due to the pilot's selection of an empty fuel tank during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC01LA078
- Event ID
- 20010708X01329
- Case number
- ANC01LA078
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f685e666558aa534b09a1377d9d1327e96c16342e8cc1f5b675ba9ddd2db8c64; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:00:51.615Z.