ANC23LA046 · Piper PA-22
Piper PA-22 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From Christiansen Lake Seaplane Base (AK8) to Cheltna Lake, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC23LA046
- 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
- 0
- 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-22
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N3321B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Christiansen Lake Seaplane Base (AK8), Talkeetna, AKTo Cheltna Lake, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1954)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering a float-equipped airplane low-level over a river, the pilot turned the airplane downwind and it encountered a downdraft. The airplane subsequently lost altitude and the pilot added power to climb; however, the airplane’s float impacted a gravel bar adjacent to the river. The airplane came to rest in an area of gravel-covered terrain, sustaining substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot reported there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s encounter with a downdraft while maneuvering low-level, which resulted in a collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC23LA046
- Event ID
- 20230706192552
- Case number
- ANC23LA046
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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 2023-07-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ab12a9ac7a41c87c37086b7e66dc8a2376b2d3a3cbd08d17b3572c00d3883caf; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:49:13.869Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. City misspelled; AK8 is the Talkeetna Village strip and the accident location is recorded as Talkeetna, AK.