ANC21LA075 · Piper PA-18 160
Piper PA-18 160 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC21LA075
- 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-18 160
- 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
- N1264A
- Operator
- Pierskalla Sheila
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Wolf Lake Airport (4AK6), Wasilla, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 70 years (built 1951)
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during takeoff from a private gravel-covered airstrip, the control stick “jammed” as the airplane climbed between 10 and 15 ft above ground level. Because the pilot and the passenger were both unable to move the control stick at their positions, the pilot closed the engine throttle to attempt an emergency landing. The airplane landed in an area of tree-covered terrain, resulting in substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no mechanical problems that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. The cause of this accident could not be determined from the available evidence.
Probable cause
The malfunction of the control stick during initial climb for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC21LA075
- Event ID
- 20210822103737
- Case number
- ANC21LA075
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-08-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f07cbc8390367cbc00b7b78ce0075d4e6c5269d0f194357f534bf9b14a05a412; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:26:40.028Z.