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ANC20CA078 · Greg Miller GOT ROCKS

5 Aug 2020 · Minchumina, AK, United States

Greg Miller GOT ROCKS · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing

From Merrill Field (PAMR) to Minchumina, AK

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Event

NTSB case
ANC20CA078
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

Greg Miller GOT ROCKS

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
N9015U
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Merrill Field (PAMR), Anchorage, AKTo Minchumina, AK
Aircraft age
About 12 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 · 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

  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot was landing his tailwheel and tundra tire-equipped airplane on a remote off-airport landing site. While on short final approach and just before touchdown a gust of wind pushed the airplane to the left. The airplane touched down about five ft left of his intended touchdown point and the left main tire impacted a large hole. The airplane subsequently nosed over sustaining substantial damage to the right wing, right lift strut and rudder. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operations. In the recommendation section of the NTSB Accident/Incident Reporting Form 6120.1, the pilot stated that he knew the winds were erratic in the area, and the accident may have been prevented if he had selected another landing site where the winds were more predictable.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in an impact with a large hole and a nose-over.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC20CA078
Event ID
20200807X42342
Case number
ANC20CA078
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: 5fa4940d7bd2e09cca367a835bf5665682cb940f3642b755c1d88351af647729; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:24:11.644Z.