MIA97LA137 · Cessna 185D
Cessna 185D · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From 65A · WARE LAKE, AL to Wetumpka Municipal Airport (08A)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA137
- 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 185D
- 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
- N285BG
- Operator
- Richard Meyer
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 65A · WARE LAKE, ALTo Wetumpka Municipal Airport (08A), AL
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot extended the landing gear, while approaching to land, but obtained an unsafe gear indication, and made a go-around. After climbing to about 1000 to 1500 feet, the engine lost power. The fuel selector was in the 'both' position, and boost pumps turned on high. The engine responded for a short time, but lost power again. The pilot attempted to land the amphibious airplane on a lake. However, he was unable to reach the lake during the forced landing, and the airplane touched down short in a clearing, then collided with a ditch during the landing roll. Examination of the fuel system revealed fuel in both fuel tanks. An engine run was conducted. The engine started and developed full power.
Probable cause
loss of engine power during a go-around for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA137
- Event ID
- 20001208X07790
- Case number
- MIA97LA137
- 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: 31e2387cfb95ceaecd790bc977469367c1e6a0e166d6c29c4327daee22a91858; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:57:59.703Z.