ERA11FA376 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm en route
From Benjamin Rivera Noriega Airport (TJCP) to Mercedita International Airport (TJPS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA376
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N8436Q
- Operator
- Antonio Torregrosa
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Benjamin Rivera Noriega Airport (TJCP), Isla de Culebra, PRTo Mercedita International Airport (TJPS), Ponce, PR
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after departure for a visual flight rules cross-country flight over ocean waters, the airplane encountered instrument meteorological conditions associated with a fast moving tropical wave. Examination of air traffic control radar data revealed that the airplane never reached a steady cruise state for any significant amount of time, and its ground track varied laterally on several occasions. This variance in altitude and ground track continued until about 17 minutes after takeoff when the airplane entered a right 270-degree turn and impacted the water while traveling downward at about 5,000 feet per minute. Examination of weather radar data and satellite imagery revealed that the tropical wave had produced overcast conditions, embedded thunderstorms with tops near 34,000 feet, heavy rain, and wind of about 47 knots. Correlation of the weather radar data to the airplane's ground track revealed that the non-instrument rated pilot was maneuvering around and through the weather, and that the airplane's position at the time of the accident correlated to the position of a thunderstorm. Examination of the wreckage after recovery from the ocean showed no evidence of preimpact mechanical failure or malfunction of the aircraft structure, flight control systems, engine, or propeller. It also revealed that the airplane was not equipped with any type of weather avoidance equipment. During the course of the investigation, no record of the pilot receiving a weather briefing was discovered.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate weather planning and improper decision to continue a visual flight rules flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in an encounter with a thunderstorm and subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA376
- Event ID
- 20110704X21533
- Case number
- ERA11FA376
- 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: 8503b47af2bab11cafdcb739ed2276fc771be00568aa4da7365d3bfac6386b64; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:31:46.283Z.