ANC13CA031 · Nelson Larry L WAG AERO 2+2
Nelson Larry L WAG AERO 2+2 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Birchwood Airport (PABV) to Chickaloon, AK (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC13CA031
- 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
Nelson Larry L WAG AERO 2+2
- Aircraft type
- Nelson Larry WAG AERO 2 2
- 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
- N86LN
- Operator
- Moody William J
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birchwood Airport (PABV), Chugiak, AKTo Chickaloon, AK (private airstrip)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was landing his wheel/ski-equipped homebuilt airplane on a remote, frozen, snow-covered lake that was surrounded by trees. After touchdown, the pilot noticed that the airplane was at a high groundspeed and that there was very little drag on the skis. With only 600 feet remaining to the tree line, he added power to abort the landing. He reported that, after he aborted the landing, the airplane could not maintain climb speed or clear the trees at the end of the landing site. In an attempt to cushion the impact, he applied full flaps. The airplane impacted trees, sustaining substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed decision to abort the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC13CA031
- Event ID
- 20130308X35142
- Case number
- ANC13CA031
- 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, coordinates. 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: 40bf228152bbd3b8b3e32ef23dac71bf637c537410c8c6fa4e3c209af3b847c0; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:03:30.916Z.