ANC21LA055 · Piper PA-18-150
B407 Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC21LA055
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 PA-18-150
- 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
- N82547
- Operator
- B407
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6), Wasilla, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that during takeoff he pushed forward aggressively on the control stick which resulted in a nose-down pitching moment exacerbated by fuel sloshing forward in the wing fuel tanks. In an effort to correct for the pitching moment, he pulled aft on the control stick which caused the tailwheel to impact the ground and the airplane veered to the left. Unable to correct for the veer, he applied the brakes too hard which resulted in a nose-over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right lift strut and vertical stabilizer. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation, and that the accident may have been prevented if he had been less aggressive when applying flight control inputs.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper flight control inputs which resulted in a loss of directional control and a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC21LA055
- Event ID
- 20210713103464
- Case number
- ANC21LA055
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-07-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 32e6114622de1c80b06c29fc3487067c44ecc621937535204810f300c2ae2f37; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:16:58.154Z.