ANC09LA035 · Piper PA-18-135
Piper PA-18-135 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6) to Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC09LA035
- 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-18-135
- 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
- N3256B
- Operator
- Edwin A. Stoltenberg · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6), Palmer, AKTo Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6), Palmer, 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 control on ground
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The uncertificated pilot was on a Title 14, CFR Part 91, local area flight in a tundra tire-equipped airplane. The pilot reported that after landing on a mud-covered tidal beach, while attempting to turn the airplane around for taxi, a gust of wind lifted the tail of the airplane, and it nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing lift strut, fuselage, and rudder. The pilot noted that shortly after the accident he and some friends were able to right the airplane, and he flew it back to his home airport. Witnesses camped on a beach next to the tidal flats reported to the that the airplane was first seen flying recklessly, and very close to the water, then they saw the airplane "ski" across the water, with the airplane's main wheels touching the surface of the water. The witnesses said that after five or six touch-and-go “ski” landings on the water, of which they took a video, the airplane's main wheels struck a sand bar, and it nosed over in shallow water. When the witnesses arrived to check on the condition of the pilot, the pilot told the witnesses, in part: "Don't call the cops." The investigation revealed that the accident pilot's third-class medical had been administratively denied due to two previous convictions of driving while intoxicated (DWI) within the last 10 years. According to State court records the pilot was charged and convicted of DWI in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Additionally, about 8 month before the accident, the pilot was charged with a fourth DWI, which is a felony.
Probable cause
The non-certificated pilot’s decision to attempt to "ski" atop a water-covered tidal area in an airplane equipped with over-sized main landing gear tires, resulting in a loss of control and a nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC09LA035
- Event ID
- 20090428X12552
- Case number
- ANC09LA035
- 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: 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 2009-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d8d072dbee7bb3b919412951a79914d2b6c1beb06b589d7faba4626b4ed464fe; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:59:43.931Z.