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Atlas / NTSB / ANC13CA043

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ANC13CA043

2013-05-05 Soldotna, Alaska, United States Airport · PASX None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the student pilot during takeoff, which resulted in a loss of control.

Factual narrative

The flight instructor was providing primary flight instruction to a student pilot in a tailwheel-equipped airplane. The instructor reported that as the student pilot was departing from a 5,000 foot-long, dry paved runway, the airplane drifted to the right just after becoming airborne. Unable to correct the drift, the airplane continued off the right side of the runway, and over an area of grass-covered terrain. The instructor said that the student pilot then closed the engine throttle and switched the engine magnetos to the off position, and the airplane subsequently landed hard on the right main landing gear wheel. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. A postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any preaccident mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operations. The flight instructor was providing primary flight instruction to a student pilot in a tailwheel-equipped airplane. The instructor reported that when the student pilot departed from the 5,000-foot-long, dry, paved runway, the airplane drifted to the right just after becoming airborne. Unable to correct the drift, the airplane continued off the right side of the runway, and over an area of grass-covered terrain. The instructor said that the student pilot then closed the engine throttle and switched the engine magnetos to the off position, and the airplane subsequently landed hard on the right main landing gear wheel. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. A postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any preaccident mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operations. 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).

  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained - C
  • C Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring other person-Instructor/check pilot - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2013_ANC13CA043.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗