NYC00LA126 · Cessna 185F
Cessna 185F · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From N62 · NEW HANOVER, PA to Heritage Field (PTW)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA126
- 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
- N6535E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From N62 · NEW HANOVER, PATo Heritage Field (PTW)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated flight instructor (CFI) and pilot were conducting a training flight. During landing, the airplane bounced once on the main landing gear and began a rollout. Control positions of left rudder, right aileron, and elevator transitioning to full up, were inputted for the crosswind condition. After about 500-600 feet into the rollout, the airplane began to swerve to the right. The pilot counteracted the swerve with the remaining amount of left rudder and then began 'feeding in left brake.' The airplane had not changed its heading of more than 30 degrees, when the CFI commanded the pilot to 'get off the brakes.' Both of the pilots applied full left rudder and the airplane departed the right side of the runway and accelerated into a ground loop. Federal Aviation Administration publication FAA-H-8083-3, Airplane Flying Handbook stated, 'If the airplane touches down while drifting or in a crab, the pilot should apply aileron toward the high wing and stop the swerve with the rudder. Brakes should be used to correct for turns or swerves only when the rudder is inadequate. The pilot must exercise caution when applying corrective brake action because it is very easy to overcontrol and aggravate the situation.' The pilot reported 4 hours of total flight experience in make and model. The winds reported at the airport, at 0854, were 320 degrees at 13 knots, gusting to 19 knots.
Probable cause
The second pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions and the inadequate supervision of the flight instructor. Factors related to the accident were the crosswind and gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA126
- Event ID
- 20001212X20908
- Case number
- NYC00LA126
- 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: fa64c2cccb27c10b61a03059c5e6d9eefb4251568b5d19f0337d2f221d740e11; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:56:03.673Z.