ANC06LA074 · Cessna 185F
Cessna 185F · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 2A4 · Bettles, AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA074
- 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
- N94204
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2A4 · Bettles, AKTo not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), 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 airline transport certificated pilot and the sole passenger were departing to the south from a seaplane base in a float-equipped airplane, under Title 14, CFR part 91. Winds were reported to be 230 degrees (true) at 8 knots, with gusts to 14 knots. A witness who saw the airplane begin the takeoff run said that as the airplane continued its takeoff run towards the south, it "staggered into the air near the south end of the lake, then turned east, away from an area of slight rising terrain, and downwind." She said that the nose of the airplane then pitched sharply to the right, then to the left, and descended nose first, behind several trees. Postaccident investigation revealed that the airplane came to rest nose down in swampy terrain. No mechanical anomalies were noted with the airframe, engine, or engine accessories. The pilot noted in his written statement to the NTSB that just after takeoff, he began a slight turn to the east to avoid the rising terrain, and encountered a decreasing windshear. He said that the airplane stalled, and crashed at a point between the waterline and the trees. He stated that there were no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane, and noted that he believed the four-point seat and shoulder harness restraint system in the airplane saved their lives.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during takeoff, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and collision with terrain. Factors contributing to the accident were the inadvertent stall, and an unfavorable wind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA074
- Event ID
- 20060629X00855
- Case number
- ANC06LA074
- 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 2006-06-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 55a2e50cce8e5f4deb86679cdaa19ff2617aaeb794adda685ecdc7a61e4aa127; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:56:45.850Z.