ANC02LA048 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Fairbanks International Airport (PAFA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC02LA048
- 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
- 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
- N1888A
- Operator
- Uriah Strong
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (PAFA), Fairbanks, 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot was landing the tundra tire-equipped airplane on a paved runway (runway 19L). The student's flight instructor was observing the flight from the ground. The student made a three-point landing, but upon touchdown, the airplane veered to the left as the right wing and right wheel came off the ground. The student applied right aileron, and the airplane slammed down on the right wheel. The right wheel landing gear strut buckled, and the right wing struck the ground. The right wing was bent upward at the right wing lift strut attach point. The student had accrued 46 total hours. At the time of the accident, the wind conditions at the airport were 120 degrees (true) at 4 knots.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during the landing roll, which resulted in the right wing striking the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC02LA048
- Event ID
- 20020614X00890
- Case number
- ANC02LA048
- 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: b4c8ad0cb83dc61fb484d52aa7a4776db4ba65a9d621c71bedb78e65c3ce60bc; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:50:54.173Z.