ANC07CA061 · Cessna 185F
Cessna 185F · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Igiugig Airport (IGG) to Lucille Lake, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC07CA061
- 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
- N9464H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Igiugig Airport (IGG), Igiugig, AKTo Lucille Lake, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private certificated pilot was conducting a personal cross-country flight under Title 14, CFR Part 91, in a float equipped airplane. In an interview, the pilot said he received a full weather briefing, and filed a VFR flight plan, which included transiting a narrow mountain pass. He said prior to entering the mountain pass, three airplanes flying in the opposite direction exited the pass, leading him to believe it was open. The pilot said once inside the pass, the clouds closed in rapidly, and he lost sight of the river he was following. In a written statement, the pilot reported that the pass was "scuddy," and that he started a slow descent. Upon losing sight of the river he reported that he asked the pilot rated, right seat passenger if he could see the river. He wrote that the passenger, seeing a stream on the right, panicked, and said "turn right," and grabbed the controls, turning the airplane to the right. The pilot indicated that he regained the controls, and made a steep left turn, at which time the airplane impacted on a 45 degree slope. In his written statement, the pilot reported that he should have entered the pass at a lower altitude, and should not have been "scud running." He indicated that the accident would not have happened if the passenger had not panicked, grabbed the controls, and made the right turn. According to the pilot, there were no known mechanical anomalies with the airplane, and that the airplane received substantial damage to the wings and fuselage during the impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's flight into adverse weather conditions, which resulted in an in-flight collision with terrain while maneuvering. A factor contributing to the accident was interference by the pilot-rated passenger.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC07CA061
- Event ID
- 20070905X01315
- Case number
- ANC07CA061
- 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 2007-07-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d2d59d240e26bb1c8ba8bff03260610d9ea1d93133776c6f9c0d667c812a1cc2; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:27:56.878Z.