ANC98LA151 · Cessna 185F
Cessna 185F · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From BETTLES, AK to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA151
- 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 185F
- 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
- N93904
- Operator
- Jerald D. Stansel · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BETTLES, AKTo Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), 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 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated private pilot was flying a float equipped airplane from a remote mountain area to pick up supplies for a hunting/guide business. During the flight, weather conditions, consisting of low ceilings and low visibility, forced the pilot to deviate from his planned route. He was flying over a public use cabin located on a remote lake, and noticed a person on the ground waving. The pilot landed on the lake to wait for improving weather conditions, and to determine if the person at the cabin was in need of assistance. After waiting for better weather conditions, the pilot began a takeoff from the lake without the person at the cabin. The pilot estimated the lake was about 1/4 mile long. As the airplane was about to lift off, the left wing collided with several trees located along the bank of the lake. The airplane then collided with the shore, and received damage to the engine, propeller, left wing, the right wing lift strut, and the float assemblies.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff and his failure to maintain adequate obstacle clearance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA151
- Event ID
- 20001211X10983
- Case number
- ANC98LA151
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-09-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d7e1feb13067d26433ca36b977a1517c53bcd9f28aa9f3b69f509ff02af9f906; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:48:07.170Z.