NYC91LA173 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From O2G · Columbus, OH to ARROW HEAD, OH (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA173
- 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 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
- N185GS
- Operator
- George H. Siegel · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O2G · Columbus, OHTo ARROW HEAD, OH (no airport)
- 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
- En route · climb to 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall; Tree(s)
- 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
- Object › Tree(s)
- Pilot in command › Complacency
- Pilot in command › Stall, encountered
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO TAKE OFF ON A 2400 FEET GRASS RUNWAY WITH THE GRASS 3 TO 4 INCHES HIGH AND A SLIGHT UPHILL INCLINE. THE OUTSIDE AIR TEMPERATURE WAS 82 DEGREES F AND THE WINDS WERE 010 AT 7 KNOTS. THE PILOT TOOK OFF ON A HEADING OF 270 DEGREES WITH 30 DEGREES OF FLAPS, 30 GALLONS OF FUEL AND 3 OCCUPANTS WEIGHING A TOTAL OF 432 LBS. THE AIRPLANE LIFTED OFF AT 45 KNOTS, CLIMBED SLOWLY, WITH THE LANDING GEAR DOWN. AT 200 FEET THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER AND STRUCK TREES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT ROTATED THE AIRPLANE PREMATURELY AND CONTINUED THE CLIMB AT A DECK ANGLE THAT EVENTUALLY RESULTED IN A STALL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S COMPLACENCY, FAILURE TO DETERMINE THE AIRPLANE'S PERFORMANCE CAPABILITIES PRIOR TO TAKE OFF AND HE TOOK OFF UP HILL WITH A QUARTERING TAIL WIND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA173
- Event ID
- 20001212X17664
- Case number
- NYC91LA173
- 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: 09bbd15c4a3d3229f7cf05563def88163723b568c5e26f85b3ddf48669a05c43; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:30:32.804Z.