NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ANC11CA115
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The student pilot's hard landing in a gusting wind.
Factual narrative
The solo student pilot was landing the float-equipped airplane on choppy water in a gusting wind. The airplane landed hard, and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The pilot did not report any mechanical issues with the airplane prior to the accident, and stated he should not have flown in those conditions. The solo student pilot was landing the float-equipped airplane on choppy water in a gusting wind. The airplane landed hard and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The student pilot did not report any mechanical issues with the airplane prior to the accident, and he stated that he should not have flown in those conditions. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Aircraft-Aircraft structures-Fuselage-Longerons/stringers (main fus)-Damaged/degraded
- C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Gusts-Contributed to outcome
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2011_ANC11CA115.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.