LAX08FA244 · Cessna A185F
Mark Storer Aviation Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Shelton, WA to Auburn, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08FA244
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N6320N
- Operator
- Mark Storer Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shelton, WATo Auburn, WA
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the float-equipped airplane land on the lake and taxi to the middle where the engine was shut down. Two men were seen exiting the airplane and sitting on the pontoons for about 30 minutes, before going back into the airplane. The airplane then taxied several more times across the lake, consistent with a typical procedure used by float plane pilots to rough up glassy water conditions to enable the airplane to lift off sooner. The airplane then taxied to the south end, turned, and departed to the northeast. The airplane lifted off near the end of the lake and attained an altitude of about 100 feet above the water and clear of trees when the witnesses observed the wings begin to wobble. The airplane rolled hard to the left and collided with the terrain in a nose-down uncontrolled descent consistent with an aerodynamic stall. Some of the witnesses detected no change in the engine sounds and commented that there were no signs of engine problems. An examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The length of the lake traveling from the south end to the northeast end is approximately 5,000 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain and maintain adequate airspeed during initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08FA244
- Event ID
- 20080801X01142
- Case number
- LAX08FA244
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: e5e7db9a62193f619a37018d22f7636c68d50922e1224242ec59e465987a49fc; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:18:36.919Z.