ANC95LA051 · Cessna 185
Island Wings Air Service Cessna 185 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during landing
From PENINSULA POINT, AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC95LA051
- 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
Cessna 185
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N111EZ
- Operator
- Island Wings Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PENINSULA POINT, AKTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Landing
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
- Pilot in command › Procedure inadequate
- Pilot in command › Water loop/swerve, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED SHE WAS ATTEMPTING TO LAND IN THE HARBOR BETWEEN TWO GUST AREAS INDICATED BY THE DISRUPTION ON THE WATER'S SURFACE. AS THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ON THE WATER SHE REDUCED THE POWER TO IDLE. THE PILOT STATED SHE WAS SURE THE AIRPLANE ROLLED TO THE RIGHT AND DRAGGED ITS RIGHT WINGTIP AND NOSED OVER. A WITNESS STANDING ON THE ADJACENT DOCK SAW THE LEFT FLOAT AND LEFT WING STRIKE THE WATER FIRST. THE PILOT STATED THAT HER INSTRUCTOR TAUGHT HER TO LAND WITH A FLAT NOSE PITCH ATTITUDE SO THE FLOATS WOULD NOT GET 'SUCKED IN.' THE AIRPLANE MANUAL STATES THAT THE AIRPLANE SHOULD BE LANDED SLIGHTLY TAIL LOW.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT WATER LOOP/SWERVE DUE TO THE USE OF IMPROPER LANDING PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC95LA051
- Event ID
- 20001207X03212
- Case number
- ANC95LA051
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f5c28ff26c823adbc197722ace63c5931b77eddd8ceda6e52dffe953bc70ab7e; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:59:51.579Z.