ANC03LA031 · Cessna 185
Cessna 185 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (PAGA) to Unalakleet Airport (PAUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC03LA031
- 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 185
- 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
- N1613M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (PAGA), Galena, AKTo Unalakleet Airport (PAUN), Unalakleet, 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 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/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
- Climb › Not possible
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that following an intersection departure, the airplane stopped climbing when it was about 50 feet above the runway. He said that the airplane's engine appeared to be producing full power, but the airplane still would not climb. As the airplane neared the end of the runway, the pilot closed the engine throttle in an effort to abort the takeoff, and land on the remaining runway. The airplane descended, and as the airplane's main landing gear struck the surface of the runway, the left main landing gear collapsed. The airplane's left wing struck the runway, and the airplane veered off the left side of the runway, into an area of snow-covered terrain. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and left wing. An FAA aviation safety inspector examined the airplane, and reported that no airframe or engine preaccident mechanical anomalies were discovered. The inspector reported that the propeller assembly had been removed prior to his arrival. Under the direction of the NTSB IIC, the propeller assembly was disassembled and inspected. No preimpact mechanical anomalies were noted during the examination.
Probable cause
The failure of the airplane to climb after takeoff which resulted in an in-flight collision with terrain during an aborted landing attempt.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC03LA031
- Event ID
- 20030313X00328
- Case number
- ANC03LA031
- 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, coordinates. 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: df94ae941fefad018e614fcf54bff078961734f8fa6b60f4e43ac4f9dd068910; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:31:58.786Z.