WPR11CA024 · Cessna 185
Cessna 185 · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Regeneration Airport (5AZ9) to Regeneration Airport (5AZ9)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA024
- 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
- N5011X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Regeneration Airport (5AZ9), Fort Thomas, AZTo Regeneration Airport (5AZ9), Fort Thomas, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that after flying for about 10 minutes he made a normal traffic pattern approach and touched down on the runway. The initial rollout was without incident; however, seconds after lowering the tailwheel onto the runway surface, the airplane encountered a sudden gust of wind from the right, which was akin to a dust devil, or strong whirlwind. At this point in time, the pilot had minimal rudder authority. Despite his efforts to maintain directional control, the airplane's left wingtip contacted the runway and the airplane rolled off the runway and into a berm. During the accident sequence the outboard portion of the left wing was bent and the right wing strut was bent. The pilot indicated that he had no warning of the presence of the dust devil swirl of air. No weather reporting services are available at the airport from which the pilot took off and landed. The pilot reported that the windsock had indicated that the wind speed was between 5 and 7 knots. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The airplane's encounter with a dust devil during landing rollout, which resulted in the pilot not being able to maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA024
- Event ID
- 20101023X35000
- Case number
- WPR11CA024
- 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, 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: 5f32a6839492e9303348c2ce1f6471eb96000b9eab3c81849dd6e51cb715bfbe; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:30:45.818Z.