ANC15FA009 · Piper PA 18
STATE OF ALASKA / Alaska State Troopers Piper PA 18 and Piper PA18 150 · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC15FA009
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Piper PA 18
- 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
- N82735
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wasilla, AKTo Beluga, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1977)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA18 150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA18
- 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
- N78NR
- Operator
- Jeff B. Bara · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birchwood Airport (PABV), Chugiak, AKTo Skwentna, 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
- En route
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
One commercial pilot was operating a Piper PA-18 "Super Cub" wheel/ski-equipped airplane as a cross-country public flight, and another commercial pilot was operating a Piper PA-18 "Super Cub" ski-equipped airplane as cross-country private flight in day, visual meteorological conditions. Multiple witnesses reported observing one of the airplanes (the wheel/ski-equipped airplane) traveling in a southwesterly direction and the other airplane traveling in a northwesterly direction. One witness said that, as the airplanes approached each other and converged, neither airplane changed altitude nor direction and that they subsequently collided at an approximate 90-degree angle. An examination of both airplanes revealed impact signatures consistent with each airplane colliding at an approximate 90-degree right angle, consistent with the witness's statement. After the collision, both aircraft descended uncontrolled into an area of densely populated trees and sustained substantial damage, and both pilot sustained serious injuries.
The pilot of the southwesterly bound airplane reported that, while in level cruise flight, the sun was at his 1130- to 1200-o'clock position; this likely resulted in sun glare. He added that he saw a momentary flash in the upper left corner of his windscreen, which was instantaneously followed by the collision. After the collision, his airplane entered an uncontrollable dive with no elevator control. In a final effort to regain control, he pushed the control stick forward, and he was able to regain limited elevator authority, but the airplane continued to descend, nose low, into the tree-covered terrain.
Probable cause
Both pilots’ inadequate visual lookout and failure to see and avoid each other while in level cruise flight, which resulted in a midair collision. Contributing to the accident was the obscuration of the pilot’s visibility due to sun glare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC15FA009
- Event ID
- 20150202X20456
- Case number
- ANC15FA009
- 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: 511903d3aaccab798612b8f37551e4e31716ba1ae18db5557eb4c0c799729fe6; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:23:40.765Z.