ANC82DA040 · Piper PA-20S
Piper PA-20S · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Gulkana Airport (GKN) to Gulkana Airport (GKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC82DA040
- 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-20S
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-20
- 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
- N6952K
- Operator
- Charles F. Chamberlain · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gulkana Airport (GKN), GULKANA, AKTo Gulkana Airport (GKN), GULKANA, 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
- 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
- Dual student › Directional control, not maintained
- Dual student › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE OWNER, A PRIVATE PILOT, WAS GETTING DUAL INSTRUCTIONAL TRAINING IN HIS TAILWHEEL EQUIPPED AIRCRAFT. THE AIRCRAFT WAS A PIPER PA-20 THAT HAD BEEN CONVERTED FROM A MODEL PA-22. THE OWNER HAD ACCUMULATED ABOUT 10 HOURS OF FLIGHT TIME IN THIS MAKE AND MODEL. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED WHEN THE AIRCRAFT GROUND LOOPED DURING A PRACTICE LANDING. THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (IP) REPORTED THAT THE OWNER/TRAINEE WAS DOING SO WELL WITH HIS PRACTICE THAT HE (THE IP) JUST RELAXED. REPORTEDLY AFTER THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHED DOWN, IT WAS GOING STRAIGHT, AND THE IP THOUGHT THE PLANE WAS UNDER CONTROL, WHEN IT STARTED TO MOVE SLIGHTLY TO THE RIGHT. THE TRAINEE STARTED TO CORRECT WITH LEFT RUDDER, BUT THE MOVEMENT TO THE RIGHT CONTINUED. THE IP THEN TRIED TO CORRECT THE IMPENDING GROUND LOOP, BUT WAS UNABLE. THE LEFT MAIN GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE LEFT WING WAS DAMAGED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC82DA040
- Event ID
- 20020917X02636
- Case number
- ANC82DA040
- 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 local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4ff7e70602b1dd59873e702893c793b66c3d7fe70cc5bb694f6e23029742af75; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:15:12.543Z.