ANC82DA044 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: nose gear collapsed during landing
From Kodiak, AK to Anchorage, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC82DA044
- 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
Cessna 150
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N1263Q
- Operator
- Norman Allen Wolfe
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kodiak, AKTo Anchorage, 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
- Nose gear collapsed
- 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 › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING BEFORE TAKEOFF. AT THAT TIME, THE WEATHER AT THE DESTINATION WAS IMPROVING, BUT WAS STILL MARGINAL VFR. THE PILOT TOOK OFF AND PROCEEDED ON A VFR FLIGHT PLAN. WHILE EN ROUTE, HE DETERMINED THAT EITHER HIS COMPASS OR DIRECTIONAL GYRO HAD A PROBLEM SINCE THE GYRO HAD TO BE RESET CONTINUOUSLY. AS THE WEATHER DETERIORATED, THE PILOT BECAME UNCERTAIN OF HIS POSITION. SEVERAL ATTEMPTS WERE MADE TO IDENTIFY THE PLANE'S POSITION WITH THE USE OF A COAST GUARD RESCUE AIRCRAFT. WHEN HIS FUEL SUPPLY BECAME CRITICAL, THE PILOT ELECTED TO MAKE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING ON THE BEACH OF AN ISLAND. AFTER TOUCHDOWN, HE HELD THE NOSE OFF AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. HOWEVER, WHEN THE NOSEWHEEL TOUCHED DOWN, IT SHEARED OFF. THE NOSE GEAR FORK DUG INTO THE SOFT, WET TERRAIN AND THE PLANE NOSED OVER. THE COAST GUARD LOCATED THE DOWNED AIRCRAFT AND AIRLIFTED THE PILOT AND PASSENGER TO KODIAK, AK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC82DA044
- Event ID
- 20020917X02640
- Case number
- ANC82DA044
- 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: a127513bb232a6865daaca8dda13a921606eebfff9e5af0f5b16c76ed6098014; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:04:51.694Z.