ANC18CA017 · Piper PA 18-125
State of Alaska Piper PA 18-125 · Accident: nose over/nose down during landing
From McGrath Airport (PAMC) to Lake Hood Seaplane Base (PALH)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18CA017
- 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
- Government
- 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 18-125
- 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
- N1386A
- Operator
- State of Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGrath Airport (PAMC), McGrath, AKTo Lake Hood Seaplane Base (PALH), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1951)
- 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
- 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
- Nose over/nose down
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had completed one high- and two low-reconnaissance flights over the snow-covered runway in his tundra-tire-equipped, tailwheel airplane. Before landing, he intended to fly a low pass and drag the main landing gear along the surface of the runway to determine the depth of the snow. He said that, as the main landing gear wheels touched down atop the frozen layer of crusty snow, the wheels broke through, and the airplane's tail began to rise. In an effort to prevent a nose-over, he applied full power, but the airplane subsequently nosed over.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the rudder and both left and right lift struts.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to contact an unsuitable landing surface, which resulted in a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18CA017
- Event ID
- 20171220X74157
- Case number
- ANC18CA017
- 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: 60b7009277430f7de06f212f184d13c548b140c9bee44e2d08da2f4d9e570afb; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:13:11.406Z.