CHI96LA024 · Cessna A185E
Cessna A185E · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Platte Municipal Airport (1D3) to Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport (LBL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA024
- 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 A185E
- 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
- N1613M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Platte Municipal Airport (1D3), Platte, SDTo Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport (LBL)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Liberal, KS, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER LANDING, THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED A GUST OF WIND, WHICH TURNED THE AIRPLANE TO THE RIGHT. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE APPLIED FULL LEFT RUDDER AND POWER TO CORRECT. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE LEFT MAIN GEAR FAILED, AND THE AIRPLANE EXITED TO THE RIGHT OF THE RUNWAY, COMING TO REST ON ITS NOSE AND RIGHT WING. REPORTED WINDS AT THE AIRPORT WERE 190 DEGREES AT 23 KNOTS WITH GUSTS TO 28 KNOTS. THERE WAS A RUBBER SKID MARK FOLLOWED BY METAL SKID MARKS ON THE RUNWAY. THE LEFT TIRE HAD SCRATCHES ON THE OUTSIDE WALL, AND THE AXLE HAD SHEARED OFF AT THE FOUR BOLTS THAT ATTACHED IT TO THE LANDING GEAR. THE LEFT BOTTOM WING TIP WAS ALSO SCRATCHED.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions, which resulted in a loss of directional control and an inadvertent ground swerve.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA024
- Event ID
- 20001207X04677
- Case number
- CHI96LA024
- 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: a8531777a85d347a66509080503e1404615a637b8c1cff168cbf4830d6584852; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:01:39.093Z.