ANC12CA037 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Gakona, AK to Fairbanks International Airport (PAFA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC12CA037
- 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-18-150
- 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
- N999JV
- Operator
- James W. Watson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gakona, AKTo Fairbanks International Airport (PAFA), Fairbanks, 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed from a remote, 800-foot-long, gravel-covered airstrip in variable wind conditions. He said that during the takeoff roll, just before liftoff, a gust of wind pushed the airplane to the right. As the airplane became airborne, the pilot felt a "bump," but he noted no control or vibration problems. After an uneventful landing at his destination airport, an examination revealed substantial damage to the lower portion of the airplane's rudder. Further examination revealed that the tailwheel likely hit something during takeoff. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to take off in variable wind conditions, which resulted in a loss of control and the airplane striking an object after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC12CA037
- Event ID
- 20120511X40747
- Case number
- ANC12CA037
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-05-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 74c63f29a9788908d00cfa9294b53a968a5ec68f0a531e75ce44b957922b214e; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:03:17.605Z.