ANC10TA028 · Piper PA-18-150
State of Alaska Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From McGrath Airport (PAMC) to Stony River, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC10TA028
- 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
- Government
- 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
- N82732
- Operator
- State of Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGrath Airport (PAMC), McGrath, AKTo Stony River, 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 · from runway
- 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 on a public use wildlife patrol in a ski-equipped airplane when the accident occurred. The pilot reported that he landed on a frozen lake to make contact with the owner of a wilderness lodge, and that while taxiing from landing the airplane slid off the taxi area and into trees. The pilot said that he attempted to determine wind conditions on the ground and elected to land upslope to the east. He reported that his landing slide was longer than anticipated and he thought about going around. After almost coming to a stop, he said that he steered the airplane to the right edge of the landing area and attempted to use power to blow the tail of the airplane around; however, when he added power the skis failed to catch and the left wing struck a tree. Upon exiting the airplane he realized that he had landed downwind and that the wind appeared to be about 6 knots. The pilot did not report any mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident. The pilot noted substantial damage to both wings.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during taxi from landing, which resulted in the airplane sliding into trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC10TA028
- Event ID
- 20100323X10754
- Case number
- ANC10TA028
- 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 2010-04-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9ccf9132b0d858f5ad1d799da41ce388c340e304a050e924f4249f24ef8d7006; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:46:57.967Z.