ANC18LA080 · Piper PA18 150
Piper PA18 150 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Delta Junction, AK to Delta Junction, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18LA080
- 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 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
- N5907Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delta Junction, AKTo Delta Junction, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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 engine power (partial)
- 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 systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, while maneuvering the airplane in mountainous terrain, he reduced engine power and initiated a descent; the engine then began to cough and run roughly. He applied full throttle, and the engine subsequently lost total power. In an attempt to restore power, he applied carburetor heat and switched fuel tanks while initiating an emergency descent. The engine restarted; however, it continued to run roughly and would not develop full power. He continued the emergency descent and landed the airplane on a mountain ridge. Upon touchdown, the left main landing gear separated from the fuselage and the left wing struck the ground, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing.
A postaccident examination of the engine, which included an engine test run, revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
According to a carburetor icing probability chart, an airplane operating in the ambient conditions at the accident site could expect carburetor icing while at cruise power and at glide power. It is likely that, when the pilot reduced engine power for the descent, carburetor ice formed and resulted in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to carburetor icing, which resulted from the pilot's failure to use carburetor heat while operating at low power settings in conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18LA080
- Event ID
- 20181002X14813
- Case number
- ANC18LA080
- 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: de29218fc0e594a60a0828c6cb61ec8bab4476eba175fbe0fc85f6ed785364ba; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:17:50.663Z.