ANC08LA078 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Tularik Creek, AK to Iliamna Airport (PAIL)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08LA078
- 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-18-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N3236P
- Operator
- Mitchell S. Jolin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Tularik Creek, AKTo Iliamna Airport (PAIL), Iliamna, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- Defining eventThe 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 (partial)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed a remote area about 20 miles west of his intended destination airport. At that time, the airplane had about 6 gallons of fuel in the left wing fuel tank, and the right wing fuel tank was nearly empty. As the flight approached the airport, the engine began to sputter and lose power. He switched to the right tank, but it ran for only a few seconds, and the engine sputtered. He switched back to the left fuel tank, but the engine continued to sputter, and the airplane lost altitude. He selected a road as a forced landing spot, but was unable to reach the road. The airplane collided with a tree and tundra, about 1.5 miles short of the airport. The pilot said that after the collision, the engine was still running, and he shut it down. The airplane received structural damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot indicated that after the accident, the left fuel tank was still showing about 4 gallons in the left wing tank sight gauge. Recovery personnel reported that they drained about 5 gallons from the left tank during retrieval of the airplane.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for an undetermined reason during an approach for landing, which resulted in a forced landing and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08LA078
- Event ID
- 20080626X00924
- Case number
- ANC08LA078
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: b818da4eb525f19ac617dec48bc10843b0230f8cac723eaf473eedf541a794ca; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:49:08.599Z.