Copper Valley Air Service Piper PA-12 accident
Piper PA-12 · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Gulkana Airport (PAGK) to Mc Carthy Airport (PAMX)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC10LA012
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N3233M
- Operator
- Copper Valley Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gulkana Airport (PAGK), Gulkana, AKTo Mc Carthy Airport (PAMX), McCarthy, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Ground collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was on a passenger flight when the accident occurred. The pilot said that, due to the cold outside temperature, he departed with the airplane's oil cooler cover in place. He said that the engine temperature increased and that he decided to land and remove the oil cooler cover. He then landed on a snow-covered lake and after landing he continued laying down tracks in the snow to aid in his departure. While laying down tracks the airplane's skis hit a ridge hidden under the snow. The pilot then examined the airplane and found that a fuselage frame tube had broken near the right main landing gear attachment. The pilot said that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for landing, which resulted in structural damage to the airplane during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC10LA012
- Event ID
- 20100115X35851
- Case number
- ANC10LA012
- 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: ee093c1bc8c030c5e03c0a8a78f4ec1c90b7d8aeacd0f9cc6d031064e8453fdc; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:37:47.194Z.