ANC02LA050 · Cessna 185F
Cessna 185F · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Talkeetna Airport (TKA) to Talkeetna Airport (TKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC02LA050
- 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
- 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 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
- N333DG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AKTo Talkeetna Airport (TKA), Talkeetna, AK
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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, main gear strut › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial pilot, with one passenger aboard, was departing from a 900 foot long gravel bar in a tail wheel equipped airplane. The flight was operated as an on-demand charter flight. During acceleration for takeoff, after reaching about 45 knots, the left main landing gear strut fractured above the left wheel axle. The upper portion of the gear strut dug into the ground, and the airplane swerved to the left. The airplane continued off the left side of the site, and the right wing struck the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage. The operator reported that a visual inspection of the fractured landing gear strut revealed a fracture through the upper two holes in the gear strut. The lower end of the spring steel landing gear strut has four holes drilled through the metal in a box pattern. The axle is attached to the outboard side of the strut. Neither the manufacturer nor the FAA have established a life limit (hours or cycles) for the main landing gear strut. An annual inspection does not require disassembly of the axle from the gear strut. No inspection procedures, other than a general visual inspection of the landing gear, have been specified by the manufacturer or the FAA. On March 16, 2001, the NTSB recommended that the FAA issue an airworthiness directive (AD) to require an initial and recurring inspection of Cessna main landing gear spring steel struts, using nondestructive inspection techniques. On August 31, 2001, the FAA reported to the NTSB that the current inspection criteria outlined in the Cessna Maintenance Manual are adequate to detect cracks in the main landing gear struts, and that additional airworthiness action is not warranted. On March 25, 2002, the NTSB responded by stating, in part: "The Safety Board continues to believe that a visual inspection alone will not detect cracks in the Cessna main landing gear spring struts. However, the Safety Board acknowledges that the statistical evidence does not warrant issuance of ADs at this time as called for in the Board's recommendation." The safety recommendation was then classified as: "Closed-Reconsidered."
Probable cause
A fracture failure of the lower end of the spring steel landing gear strut. Factors contributing to the accident were the manufacturer's and the FAA's insufficient standards/requirements for inspection procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC02LA050
- Event ID
- 20020619X00930
- Case number
- ANC02LA050
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-06-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d19c38bcbfd251e179b33794db92fe7fd5455f7b2fb959782ec7b93168cf6613; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:01:39.962Z.