Salmon Air Taxi Cessna 185E accident
Cessna 185E · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From McCall Municipal Airport (MYL) to Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA83LA177
- 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 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
- N4772Q
- Operator
- Salmon Air Taxi
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCall Municipal Airport (MYL), McCall, IDTo Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, ID
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Brakes(normal), excessive
- Pilot in command › Flare, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boise, ID, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT LANDED IN A NEAR MAXIMUM VELOCITY CROSSWIND AND WHILE BRAKING TO CONTROL/CORRECT A SWERVE, THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR SEPARATED FROM THE ACFT. THE LANDING WAS ON RWY 28R AND THE WIND WAS FROM 200 DEGREES AT 10 TO 14 KTS ON FINAL AND 12 KTS WHEN THE PILOT WAS OVER THE THRESHOLD. THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN ON THE LEFT WHEEL AND BOUNCED A LITTLE. ITTOUCHED DOWN AGAIN ON THE LEFT GEAR AND THE PILOT RAISED THE TAIL. THE RIGHT MAIN CAME DOWN WITH THE TAIL STILL IN THE AIR. AT ABOUT 4O MPH THE TAIL WAS LOWERED AND THE ACFT STARTED A LEFT TURN. THE PILOT CORRECTED WITH FULL RUDDER AND RIGHT BRAKING. THE PILOT DETECTED A SINKING ON THE RIGHT SIDE AND THEN THE RIGHT STRUT COLLAPSED. WHEN HE DEPLANED THE PILOT DISCOVERED THE RIGHT GEAR HAD SEPARATED. THE MAXIMUM DEMONSTRATED CROSSWIND VELOCITY FOR THIS AIRCRAFT (CESSNA 185) IS 15 KTS. METALLURGICAL TESTS WERE PERFORMED ON THE RIGHT WHEEL SPINDLE ATTACHING NUTS AND BOLTS WHICH SHOWED THAT THE REAR BOLTS FAILED AT THE INTERFACE OF SPINDLE AND STRUT DUE TO TENSILE OVERLOAD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA83LA177
- Event ID
- 20001214X44365
- Case number
- SEA83LA177
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-08-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d4837bf0ecb11d6153d86baba1570aa7e2791b9a04567d0020ac57a15a14c021; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:55:41.777Z.