LAX06CA179 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Brownsville Airpark (F25) to Columbia Airport (O22)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA179
- 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 A185F
- 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
- N5468E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brownsville Airpark (F25), Brownsville, CATo Columbia Airport (O22), Columbia, CA
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The tail wheel equipped airplane ground looped on landing. The Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS) reported that the wind was 170 degrees at 4 knots. The pilot entered the pattern at 45 degrees to the right downwind for runway 17. He said he could not see the windsock on final approach, but the stability of the airplane confirmed the weather report. He executed a three-point full stall landing. Immediately upon touchdown, the airplane's tail swung to the left. He applied full left rudder to regain directional control, but the airplane did not respond. The airplane turned 90 degrees to the right, began skidding on the left main gear, and tilted to the left. The left wing and horizontal tail surfaces made contact with the runway and the airplane came to rest after completing a 180-degree turn. The windsock at midfield indicated a 90-degree right crosswind at approximately 10 knots. The Airport/Facility Directory (A/FD) entry for Columbia Airport states, "varying wind direction and velocity may be encountered at midpoint of runway 17-35 due to terrain features and wind flow patterns." The pilot stated that the airplane and engine had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate compensation for the crosswind condition and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing rollout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA179
- Event ID
- 20060620X00778
- Case number
- LAX06CA179
- 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: b12a07af399434679fa564cca56455bfb0b4b0ad1b02003d5c5df6b0544e5cf9; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:54:22.279Z.