ANC09CA039 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Kenai, AK to Kenai Municipal Airport (PAEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC09CA039
- 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 170B
- 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
- N3469C
- Operator
- Dale Paul D
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenai, AKTo Kenai Municipal Airport (PAEN), Kenai, 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 · landing roll
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was returning to the airport after a personal local flight made under Title 14, CFR Part 91. He said while on final approach to land, he was advised by the tower of a flock of geese that took off from an adjacent waterway. During touchdown, he said a pilot waiting to takeoff reported sighting the geese, and his attention was diverted for a moment. In that moment he said the airplane started a turn to the right. He indicated he applied left rudder and power, but could not stop the turn. The pilot said the left main landing gear collapsed in the turn, and the left wing struck the ground. He noted there were no known mechanical problems with the airplane prior to the accident. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the landing gear box and the left wing during the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll, which resulted in a ground-loop. A factor contributing to the accident was the pilot's diverted attention during the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC09CA039
- Event ID
- 20090512X31427
- Case number
- ANC09CA039
- 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 2009-05-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 712a847e60cc47b0fee0f7f04d668140971089a6e34961a8548dc51a67d916e5; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:02:38.822Z.