ANC21LA071 · Piper PA-14
Angel Aviation Piper PA-14 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Merrill Field (MRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC21LA071
- 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-14
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-14
- 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
- N4226H
- Operator
- Angel Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 73 years (built 1948)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and two passengers were departing from a remote gravel bar located along a river in the tailwheel-equipped airplane. After loading the airplane to 2,100 pounds, which was 165 pounds over the maximum allowable gross weight for the airplane, the pilot began a westerly takeoff since the prevailing wind above the treeline was coming from the west. Once the airplane cleared the treeline, the wind pushed it to the left, he continued the left turn, and the airspeed began to decrease. In effort to correct for the decreasing airspeed, he pushed forward on the airplane’s control stick and pitched the nose of the airplane down. Realizing he would be unable to regain sufficient airspeed, he reduced the engine power to idle, pulled back on the control stick and impacted the river in a nose high attitude. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control and adequate airspeed during takeoff which resulted in a collision with a river. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s improper decision to load the airplane above its maximum allowable gross weight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC21LA071
- Event ID
- 20210817103710
- Case number
- ANC21LA071
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-08-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 814d756a65694d43b9d8e08e7c2034a744b635520a203e002e42b01e9a02668c; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:25:38.219Z.