ANC03LA127 · Piper PA-12
Piper PA-12 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Merrill Field (PAMR) to Lake Hood Airport (Z41)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC03LA127
- 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-12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N2914M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Field (PAMR), Anchorage, AKTo Lake Hood Airport (Z41), 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On the takeoff initial climb, about 60 feet above the ground, the airplane's engine lost power. During an emergency descent/ landing, the pilot said he switched the fuel selector valve from one tank to the other. During the landing roll, the engine power suddenly returned. The right main landing gear tire struck a runway edge light fixture, and the right main gear collapsed, damaging the propeller and the right wing lift strut. During recent maintenance, a mechanic had removed the fuel selector valve for lubrication and inspection. The mechanic reported that he noticed the fuel valve shaft did not have an index shape to properly match the selector handle position, and consequently was careful to reinstall the handle on the valve as he found it. The mechanic performed about a 10 minute engine run after reinstalling the valve. He said the pilot also ran the engine for about an additional 10 minutes before departure. The fuel selector handle is attached to the valve shaft by a screw, and can be rotated 360 degrees. The handle incorporates an arrow to provide visual reference for fuel tank selection that matches placard markings on a metal trim panel. An examination of the airplane was conducted at a recovery facility by FAA personnel, 18 days after the accident. Prior to the examination, the fuel valve handle and trim panel were removed by recovery personnel, but reportedly replaced in the position found before recovery. The FAA found that the selector handle was installed with the arrow of the handle oriented 90 degrees counterclockwise from its proper valve orientation. When the fuel selector handle was placed on the left tank, the valve was actually positioned to the right tank. When the fuel selector handle was placed on the right tank, the valve was actually positioned to an "off" position. The pilot initially reported that the fuel selector handle was positioned on the left tank during takeoff, but when asked later about the fuel selector handle position, he said he could not be certain that the fuel handle was on the left fuel tank. No further examination of the airframe fuel system or the engine was performed.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for an undetermined reason, which resulted in a forced landing and collision with a runway light fixture.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC03LA127
- Event ID
- 20031001X01648
- Case number
- ANC03LA127
- 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: 590e3b200c2095fa0ec21bfefee499d00d483771c48fbcad71cd4bae741d3c7e; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:26:00.616Z.