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Atlas / NTSB / ANC22LA049

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ANC22LA049

2022-06-20 Palmer, Alaska, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N7048K

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-20

Year of manufacture

1950 · 72 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING 0-290 SERIES (140 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A966E4

Registrant of record

HURLBERT MICHAEL L

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the pilot’s failure to utilize carburetor heat.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that he was departing from a remote unimproved landing site. During takeoff, at about 200 feet above ground level, the engine lost all power. The pilot made a forced landing to a gravel sand bar, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage and both wing lift struts. The pilot stated that he believed that the carburetor developed ice as weather conditions were conducive to carburetor icing and he failed to apply carburetor heat. The pilot reported that there were no pre-accident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Lack of action-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Ice/rain protection system-Intake anti-ice, deice-Not used/operated
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Temp/humidity/pressure-Conducive to carburetor icing-Effect on equipment

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_ANC22LA049.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 (icing). 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 ↗