ANC13FA091 · Piper PA-18A
Piper PA-18A · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Tatitna Airport (8KA) to Big Lake Airport (BGQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC13FA091
- 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
- 1 · 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-18A
- 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
- N4581A
- Operator
- Mueller Scott C
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tatitna Airport (8KA), Tatitna, AKTo Big Lake Airport (BGQ), Big Lake, 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 in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
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
Before departure, caribou antlers were attached externally to the airplane's left wing lift struts, the airplane's main wing fuel tanks were refueled, the airplane was loaded with two butchered caribou and hunting gear, and the passenger's rifle was strapped onto the right wing. The passenger reported that, after taking off toward the east, the pilot stated that he "should have taken off the other way." A witness stated that the airplane departed downwind and began a shallow climb, followed by a gradual left turn, before descending into the trees just beyond the departure end of the runway.
No restricted airworthiness certificate had been issued by the Federal Aviation Administration authorizing external load operations. Further, the airplane's estimated gross weight at the time of the accident was about 642 pounds over its approved maximum takeoff weight and its center of gravity was significantly beyond the aft-most limit. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot took off downwind and inadvertently stalled the airplane at a low altitude due to the exceedance of its allowable weight and center of gravity limits and the effect of the external load (antlers) and was unable to recover.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to load the airplane beyond its allowable takeoff weight and center of gravity limits, which resulted in a loss of control during the initial climb. Contributing to the accident was the external load and the downwind takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC13FA091
- Event ID
- 20130903X04459
- Case number
- ANC13FA091
- 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 2013-08-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7af742ab5a08b26ce22ff9ae451e7d28aecab05d2c0c6b0aeca2d86812828e4a; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:03:31.109Z.