Rodney Judy Cessna 185 accident
Cessna 185 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From CASCADE CREEK, AK to Petersburg James A Johnson Airport (PSG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC92LA181
- 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 185
- 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
- N4891Q
- Operator
- Rodney Judy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CASCADE CREEK, AKTo Petersburg James A Johnson Airport (PSG), Petersburg, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PILOT OVERFLEW WATER LANDING AREA AT REMOTE LOCATION NOTING THAT HIGH GUSTING WINDS WERE SUBSIDING AND THE LANDING AREA WAS NOW SUITABLE FOR OPERATIONS. AFTER LANDING AND LOADING ONE PAX AND 225 LBS OF CARGO, HE ATTEMPTED WATER TAKEOFF. ON INITIAL LIFT OFF, GUSTS FORCED AIRCRAFT BACK TO WATER, HOWEVER THE PILOT ELECTED TO CONTINUE THE TAKEOFF RUN. BECOMING AIRBORNE A SECOND TIME, THE PILOT LOST CONTROL AT 30 FT ALTITUDE AND CARTWHEELED INTO THE WATER.
Probable cause
THE PILOTS INADEQUATE COMPENSATION FOR WIND DURING INITIAL CLIMB. A FACTOR RELATING TO ACCIDENT WAS THE GUSTY WIND CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC92LA181
- Event ID
- 20001211X15579
- Case number
- ANC92LA181
- 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: 7a11f7e38f1e4ce2f1ba5472d4612941085c9b438914498d7e57de990397c18a; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:43:40.204Z.