James Okonek Cessna A185F accident
Cessna A185F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From RUTH GLACIER, AK to Talkeetna Airport (TKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93FA123
- 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
- N124KT
- Operator
- James Okonek
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From RUTH GLACIER, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT HAD LANDED AT THE 5,600-FT LEVEL OF RUTH GLACIER FOR A 20 MIN TOURIST STOPOVER. ANOTHER FLIGHT, FLOWN BY A COMPANY SENIOR PILOT, ALSO HAD LANDED. THE SENIOR PILOT NOTICED A FUEL TANK FILLER CAP HANGING LOOSE ON THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE, AND THE TWO PILOTS MEASURED THE FUEL IN THE TANKS. ONE TANK WAS FOUND EMPTY. THE PILOTS DETERMINED THAT THE AIRPLANE SHOULD BE FLOWN OFF THE GLACIER 'TO VERIFY THE FUEL LEVEL ON THE GAUGES IN LEVEL FLIGHT ATTITUDE, AND THAT IF HE (THE ACCIDENT PILOT) HAD ANY DOUBT ABOUT SUFFICIENT FUEL QUANTITY, TO RETURN (TO THE GLACIER) AND WE'D BRING HIM FUEL.' ABOUT 3 MIN AFTER TAKEOFF THE ENGINE QUIT AND THE FLIGHT MADE A CRASH LANDING AT THE 2,800-FT ELEVATION. THE PASSENGERS STATED THAT THE PILOT TOLD THEM TO 'TIGHTEN (OR FASTEN) YOUR SEATBELTS' DURING THE ENGINE-OUT DESCENT. NO PASSENGER COULD RECALL KNOWING THAT IMPACT WAS IMMINENT. THE RIGHT TANK WAS FOUND EMPTY, AND THE LEFT TANK CONTAINED 2-5 GALS. A PASSENGER STATED THAT THE RIGHT TANK WAS INDICATING EMPTY ON THE TRIP TO THE GLACIER FROM TALKEETNA.
Probable cause
FUEL EXAUSTION DUE TO THE THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO REFUEL. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE: PRESSURE BY MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL AND LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN DURING THE FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93FA123
- Event ID
- 20001211X12737
- Case number
- ANC93FA123
- 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 1993-07-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 037f2989ac1bdc9cbbd214a1c7a9fcfaf3bc4ec1ccbc23480f684d62fa99f62e; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:33:03.850Z.