LAX02LA052 · Cessna 185F
Cessna 185F · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Carson Airport (CXP) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA052
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- N5172R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carson Airport (CXP), Carson City, NVTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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
- Landing gear, tailwheel assembly › Binding(mechanical)
- Landing gear, tailwheel assembly › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The left wing and horizontal stabilizer sustained substantial damage when they contacted the ground during the landing roll. The landing was uneventful until the pilot lowered the tail to the ground, and the airplane suddenly veered to the right. The pilot locked up the left wheel brake, but the airplane continued to the right. Just before the airplane stopped, the left wing and horizontal stabilizer contacted the ground. The pilot said that on several previous occasions the tail wheel seemed to stick initially and cause the airplane to deviate from the selected track, but would free up and track straight. Post accident examination revealed that the tail wheel rotated freely until moved to its maximum left deflection limit, and the tail wheel locked in this position. A mechanic detected wear on both sides of the thrust plate spacers (part number 3407-00). He suspected that the tail wheel springs (part number 3233-00) were binding on the thrust plates. He recommended replacement of the thrust plates whenever they showed wear on either side.
Probable cause
Wear on the tail wheel thrust plate spacers resulted in the compression springs binding on the thrust plates and the tail wheel sticking, so that the pilot could not maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA052
- Event ID
- 20011227X02449
- Case number
- LAX02LA052
- 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: 25f428b2c82d0a4cfc2e53170003013226971f01b0e4dfb277ef1ddf4635d3a0; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:14:36.078Z.