GAA16CA008 · Piper PA 12
Piper PA 12 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Copper Center 2 Airport (Z93) to Gulkana Airport (PAGK)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA008
- 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 12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA
- 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
- N7879H
- Operator
- James and Deborah Lorence
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Copper Center 2 Airport (Z93), Copper Center, AKTo Gulkana Airport (PAGK), Glennallen, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1946)
- 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
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during a landing at an airstrip, he did not realize that he was not centered on the airstrip. The pilot reported that the left wing tip struck a tree during the approach to land. He reported that he tried to control the airplane after the initial impact, however the left wing impacted a second tree, and the airplane collided with the terrain coming to rest in the brush. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to or during the flight that would have prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from trees during the approach to land, resulting in a collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA008
- Event ID
- 20151007X85353
- Case number
- GAA16CA008
- 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 2015-10-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 40cfda9157c79ed6a94defa4c19f2a40d3a3cf3c5e670183a833c8dd4e9461d2; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:52:24.983Z.