ANC04LA112 · Cessna 170
Cessna 170 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Teller, AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04LA112
- 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
Cessna 170
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N3492C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Teller, 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport certificated pilot was departing toward the north from a gravel area along a remote creek. The takeoff area was oriented north/south, and was about 800 feet long, and about 100 feet wide. The pilot indicated the wind was variable, about 7 knots. About 25 feet after liftoff, the right main landing gear tire struck about a 2 foot high embankment. The airplane settled onto the gravel bar and came to a stop. The pilot said that an observer on the ground reported to him that the wind appeared to switch to a tailwind during the takeoff run. The airplane was retrieved from the scene by helicopter. The pilot of the helicopter reported that when he arrived at the scene, he observed the right main landing gear strut and tire lying in a small creek, separated from the fuselage, between what appeared to be the takeoff point, and the airplane's point of rest.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff, and his inadequate evaluation of the wind conditions, which resulted in a collision with an embankment during takeoff-initial climb. Factors contributing to the accident was the presence of a sand embankment, and a tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04LA112
- Event ID
- 20040929X01534
- Case number
- ANC04LA112
- 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 2004-09-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2f801f8260d15c6676e534e7bb246a1dba907752ff4278919101cef22039b5a5; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:45:01.983Z.