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ANC19LA051 · Lake LA-4-200

3 Sept 2019 · Girdwood, AK, United States

Lake LA-4-200 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing

From Merrill Field (MRI) to Girdwood-Alyeska Airport (AQY)

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Event

NTSB case
ANC19LA051
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

Lake LA-4-200

Aircraft type
Lake LA-4
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
N6672L
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AKTo Girdwood-Alyeska Airport (AQY), Girdwood, AK
Aircraft age
About 49 years (built 1970)
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 · landing roll
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
  • 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

According to the pilot, the landing gear and flaps failed to retract after departure. After verifying that the hydraulic pump circuit breaker had not opened and noting that the hydraulic pressure gauge indicated zero, he was able to successfully retract both the landing gear and wing flaps using the emergency hydraulic hand pump. Upon arrival at his destination, he again used the hand pump to extend both the landing gear and wing flaps. After touchdown, he applied the wheel brakes in an effort to slow and steer the airplane, but the airplane did not slow down. The airplane exited the side of the runway, proceeded down an embankment, and came to rest on its left wing and hull sustaining substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. Postaccident examination of the brake and flight control systems revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Although the pilot reported the failure of the airplane's landing gear and wing flap hydraulic system, it was independent of the brake system and therefore was not examined.

Probable cause

The pilot's loss of directional control while landing, which resulted in a runway excursion and collision with terrain.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC19LA051
Event ID
20190912X20648
Case number
ANC19LA051
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: ba0b08735ab0227c3457e12f7e6b64a9d0a22e5fabbb669ad58460068ecc8deb; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:03:23.861Z.