ANC12LA075 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during initial climb
From Kenai, AK to Anchorage, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC12LA075
- 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
- N7154Z
- Operator
- Tyler Renner
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenai, AKTo Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, with one passenger aboard, departed in a float-equipped airplane from a remote lake. Shortly after takeoff, about 100 feet above the water, the airplane's engine began to vibrate violently. The pilot reduced engine power, turned the airplane left to avoid trees at the departure end of the lake, and attempted an emergency landing on the lake. The airplane continued to descend, and it subsequently collided with a shallow portion of the lake, sustaining substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. A postaccident examination revealed that a 6-inch portion of one propeller blade separated, resulting in a severe imbalance.
An NTSB metallurgical examination of the fractured propeller blade revealed evidence of an unauthorized and undocumented repair of a nearly cylindrical hole, measuring about 0.3 inch in diameter. The examination also revealed areas where a white, opaque, plastic-like filler material, consistent with automotive body repair filler, was used to cover the hole before it was painted over, which subsequently made the unauthorized repair undetectable.
The airplane owner reported that the propeller was already installed when he recently purchased the airplane. In addition, no logbook entry was found that would have indicated any damage, repairs, modifications, or a propeller assembly installation.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of a propeller tip due to an unauthorized and undocumented propeller repair.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC12LA075
- Event ID
- 20120717X52716
- Case number
- ANC12LA075
- 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: 53d213f5afb34536a703424926b765e167aad8dad1ee2910fc89492c1a1c49dd; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:55:58.030Z.