ANC03LA052 · Cessna 185
Cessna 185 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Ladd Army Airfield (PAFB) to Ladd Army Airfield (PAFB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC03LA052
- 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
- N70162
- Operator
- Bureau of Land Management
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ladd Army Airfield (PAFB), Fairbanks, AKTo Ladd Army Airfield (PAFB)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport certificated pilot was performing a full stop landing in a tailwheel and tundra tire-equipped airplane with a 15-knot right quartering crosswind. The pilot reported that during the landing, as the tailwheel touched the runway, the right wing began to rise. He added engine power to abort the landing, but the left wing struck the runway as the airplane became airborne. The pilot then performed an uneventful landing. An examination of the left wing disclosed damage to the outboard left wing rib, and the outboard left aileron rib.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for a crosswing during the landing roll. A factor contribuiting to the accident was the presence of a crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC03LA052
- Event ID
- 20030606X00810
- Case number
- ANC03LA052
- 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 2003-05-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e799967d538aa0f4e37356834b6e023f6c55d606f341fcd2d9de4d24facd1984; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:15:02.170Z.