ANC04LA005 · Piper PA-20
Piper PA-20 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Akiak Airport (AKI) to Akiak Airport (AKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04LA005
- 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-20
- 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
- N1486A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Akiak Airport (AKI), Aniak, AKTo Akiak Airport (AKI), Aniak, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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 › Carburetor heat, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was flying over mountainous terrain when he noted a rough running engine and a slight reduction in engine rpm. He applied full carburetor heat, which was followed by a rapid loss of engine power, and subsequent loss of altitude. Unable to restore adequate engine power to maintain level flight, the pilot selected an uphill portion of a mountainside as a forced landing site. During touchdown on the soft, tundra-covered terrain, the left main landing gear collapsed, and the left wing struck the ground. The airplane sustained structural damage to the left wing and fuselage. The pilot said that weather conditions at the time of the accident were, in part: Visibility, 10 statute miles in light rain and mist; clouds and sky condition, 3,000 feet overcast; temperature, 40 degrees F. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane, and that the loss of engine power was due to carburetor icing.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed application of carburetor heat, which resulted in a loss of engine power, and subsequent forced landing. Factors associated with the accident were weather conditions conducive to carburetor icing, and the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04LA005
- Event ID
- 20031106X01871
- Case number
- ANC04LA005
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-11-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9f9d1e76d8cc6bc07b6b5a41930d1dc99b1fed0dca97616f5b82a24985df68b1; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:19:37.565Z.