Douglas Geeting Aviation Cessna A185F accident
Cessna A185F · Accident during takeoff
From KAHILTNA GLAC'R, AK to Talkeetna Airport (TKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA074
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 A185F
- 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
- N185DG
- Operator
- Douglas Geeting Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From KAHILTNA GLAC'R, AKTo Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AK
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff from a glacier off airport landing site, the right landing gear leg and ski separated from the airplane and both wings contacted the snow. Postaccident inspection revealed multiple site fatigue cracks at both upper wheel attachment bolt holes on the right landing gear leg. The airplane was routinely used for off airport landings on both wheels and skis. The airplane had accumulated 6,561 hours in operation at the time of the accident. No life limit (hours or cycles) exists for Cessna 185 landing gear legs. The only inspection for cracks is a visual inspection for general condition performed at 100 hour and annual intervals. This inspection does not require removal of the wheels/skis, nor does it require removal of any paint coatings prior to inspection.
Probable cause
The failure of the right main landing gear leg due to fatigue cracking. A factor associated with this accident is the inadequate inspection procedure specified by the manufacturer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA074
- Event ID
- 20001211X10212
- Case number
- ANC98LA074
- 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: 5308f4a21afe637474ce76e3a6c41e27757dc989e402fbd136865848f13e6a45; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:08:03.309Z.