ANC16CA055 · Kirbybilt Aircraft XCALIBUR
Kirbybilt Aircraft XCALIBUR · Accident: landing area undershoot
From Valdez Pioneer Field (VDZ) to Valdez Pioneer Field (VDZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC16CA055
- 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
Kirbybilt Aircraft XCALIBUR
- Aircraft type
- Kirbybilt XCALIBUR
- 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
- N505XC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valdez Pioneer Field (VDZ), Valdez, AKTo Valdez Pioneer Field (VDZ), Valdez, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2008)
- 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
- Landing area undershoot
- 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 › Task performance
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 reported that he made an approach to a remote grass airstrip that resulted in the tailwheel-equipped airplane being too low to make the airstrip threshold. During the touchdown, the main landing gear impacted an embankment and collapsed, and the bottom of the fuselage impacted terrain. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
As a safety recommendation, the pilot reported to avoid landing at this particular area until more reconnaissance is conducted along with additional off airport operations practice.
The Federal Aviation Administration has published the Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3A (2004). This handbook discusses a low final approach and states in part:
When it is realized the runway will not be reached unless appropriate action is taken, power must be applied immediately to maintain the airspeed while the pitch attitude is raised to increase lift and stop the descent. When the proper approach path has been intercepted, the correct approach attitude should be reestablished and the power reduced and a stabilized approach maintained.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate glide path during landing, which resulted in the airplane landing short of the airstrip, a landing gear collapse, and subsequent substantial damage to the fuselage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC16CA055
- Event ID
- 20160809X64640
- Case number
- ANC16CA055
- 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: f9bf758d6825fd38a1b81845b8c9cfa5887268d6725125d7925447d253e6d73a; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:08:24.086Z.