NYC99LA156 · Cessna 185E
Cessna 185E · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Goodspeed Airport (42B) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA156
- 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 185E
- 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
- N3385L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goodspeed Airport (42B)To not recorded
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- 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
- Fuel system › Contamination, water
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of East Haddam, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on its first flight since recent maintenance from a previous accident in which the airplane was submerged under water. As the airplane climbed out the engine began to loose power and the pilot attempted a forced landing to a river. The airplane stalled and impacted the water nose down and sank. A test run of the engine was performed after the accident and no anomalies were noted. Inspection of the fuel injector distributor valve revealed fuel and water coming from under the diaphragm. An airworthiness directive was issued in 1986 to prevent power loss or engine stoppage due to water contamination of fuel system. The AD addressed the potential for trapped water in the wing fuel bladder due to wrinkles. The AD was complied with in 1989. Examination of the left wing revealed inward and upward crushing damage to the leading edge, from the wing root outward. The wing fuel bladder was inspected, and 5 wrinkles were found, about 8-12 inches in length and 1/4 inch high, that extended from the wing root, outward.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to water in the fuel system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA156
- Event ID
- 20001212X19104
- Case number
- NYC99LA156
- 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: 884618de33f9a1b51a33644839ad91eeb387d6b47993ecf2e61cbb839c72ac49; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:58:33.100Z.