WPR12LA263 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during landing
From High River Airport (CEN4) to Billings Logan International Airport (KBIL)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's registration. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA263
- 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 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
- CG-ZVF Narrative disagrees
- Operator
- Robin Johnson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From High River Airport (CEN4), High RiverTo Billings Logan International Airport (KBIL), Billings, MT
- 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
- 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 engine power (partial)
- 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
- Wire
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he recently purchased the accident airplane, which had previously been in storage. Before he departed, the airplane’s fuel tanks were filled and a preflight check revealed no contaminants. During the night flight, the pilot switched fuel tanks, and the engine sputtered and lost power. He attempted to restart the engine while descending toward a highway for a forced landing. After the pilot switched the fuel selector back to the original fuel tank, the engine restarted; however, moments later the airplane struck a transmission wire, which the pilot did not see until the last minute because of the dark lighting conditions. The pilot made a forced landing in a field. The pilot attributed the engine sputtering to undetected water in the fuel system; however, a postaccident examination of the fuel system revealed no contaminants, and operation of the engine showed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot added that he had “recently lost his wife and had not been thinking correctly.” The pilot did not have a current flight review or medical certificate.
Probable cause
A momentary loss of engine power, which led to an emergency descent at night during which the airplane collided with a wire. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined because postaccident examination and operation did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA263
- Event ID
- 20120614X65421
- Case number
- WPR12LA263
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-06-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 856bdb663e889d6e27549931e6f10309df7f84d662287ed9f75d4df4ff5a610a; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:30:32.600Z.