ANC16LA059 · Wight CARBON CUB CCK-1865
Wight CARBON CUB CCK-1865 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From PSAT · Summit, AK to Todds Strip (5AK5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC16LA059
- 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
Wight CARBON CUB CCK-1865
- Aircraft type
- Wight CARBON CUB CCK-1865
- 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
- N625EX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PSAT · Summit, AKTo Todds Strip (5AK5), Wasilla, AK
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2016)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was conducting a personal cross-country flight in the experimental amateur-built, tailwheel-equipped airplane. The pilot reported that, while landing on a turf and gravel airstrip, the airplane veered sharply left as the tailwheel touched down. Despite applying full right rudder and brake controls, the pilot was unable to correct the airplane's track, and the right wing and horizontal stabilizer impacted the ground. The pilot stated that, after the airplane stopped, he was unable to straighten the tailwheel with the rudder control inputs because the tailwheel was bent.
Postaccident metallurgical examination of the tailwheel suspension system revealed fractures within the welds of the assembly and a fatigue fracture at the bolt hole for mounting the tailwheel. The crack fracture surfaces exhibited orange and dark red corrosion, suggesting that the cracks were preexisting, and the fracture surfaces were consistent with overstress. The assembly also exhibited general twisting deformation, primarily as the result of deformation in the pivot bracket.
Probable cause
The failure of the tailwheel suspension assembly during landing due to preexisting fatigue fractures in the suspension system, which resulted in a loss of directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC16LA059
- Event ID
- 20160817X23628
- Case number
- ANC16LA059
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-08-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 953c11f2b552c3fff4c90f947c8cb9fabb82c82adac9899d984937c1a7574a8d; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:10:06.046Z.