ANC10CA002 · Piper PA-31-350
Lake Clark Air Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Iliamna Airport (ILI) to Nondalton Airport (5NN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC10CA002
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N27231
- Operator
- Lake Clark Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Iliamna Airport (ILI), Iliamna, AKTo Nondalton Airport (5NN), Nondalton, 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 control in flight
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo airline transport pilot reported that he was landing on a gravel-covered airstrip, at the conclusion of a Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 positioning flight. He reported that while on final approach, the airplane "encountered a sinker" and it began to descend below his anticipated approach path. He added full engine power to stop the descent, but the airplane continued to descend, and it landed hard on the right side of the runway. During touchdown, the airplane’s landing gear collapsed, and it continued to slide for about 150 yards, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane. A weather reporting station 14 miles south of the accident site reported wind from 110 degrees at 24 knots, gusting to 35 knots 12 minutes before the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt a landing in weather conducive to strong downdrafts, resulting in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC10CA002
- Event ID
- 20091013X44018
- Case number
- ANC10CA002
- 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. 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: 742d50110ae183fd678cae8c5d7a05a06bb1dd1499c474ed3c7734ae70baf76a; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:24:21.792Z.