MKC89FA135 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Ely Municipal Airport (ELO) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC89FA135
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N70466
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Ely Municipal Airport (ELO), ELY, MNTo 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
- 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 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A NORMAL PREFLT OF THE FLOAT PLANE WAS MADE WITH ONLY STRAW OF A BIRD NEST BEING REMOVED BEFORE FLT. TWO WITNESSES RPRTD THAT THE ACFT'S ENGS SEEMED TO BE RUNNING AT FULL POWER AS THE FLOAT PLANE WAS CLIMBING TO ALTITUDE OVER BIG MOOSE LAKE (WHERE THE OCCUPANTS OF THE ACFT HAD BEEN FISHING). ONE OF THE PASSENGERS (THE PLT'S 15 YR OLD SON) SAID THE ENG BEGAN TO LOSE POWER & THE PLT REVERSED COURSE IN AN ATMT TO LAND ON THE LAKE. HOWEVER, HE WAS UNABLE TO REACH THE LAKE & THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & SWAMPY TERRAIN DURING AN EMERGENCY LANDING. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE AIRCRAFT OR ENG WAS FOUND DURING THE INVESTIGATION. AFTER MINOR REPAIRS, THE ENG RAN NORMALLY DURING AN OPNL CHECK.
Probable cause
LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE PRESENCE OF TREES IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC89FA135
- Event ID
- 20001213X28623
- Case number
- MKC89FA135
- 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: c04888be76177d8170da0661a9103d9167df0add57f8878af49c4296578fee5c; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:17:13.103Z.