ANC13CA020 · Cessna A185E
Cessna A185E · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while taxiing
From Merrill Field (MRI) to Skwentna, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC13CA020
- 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 A185E
- 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
- N4538F
- Operator
- William A Barnes · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AKTo Skwentna, 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
- Taxi
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 of the wheel/ski-equipped airplane landed on a remote, frozen, snow-covered lake. While taxiing to park, the right wheel/ski struck an area of ice overflow that was covered by snow. During the collision, the axle bolts on the right wheel/ski broke, which pivoted the airplane to the right, and the right wing struck the snow-covered ice. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. In a written statement, the pilot reported that flat light conditions on the snow-covered lake contributed to his inability to see the ice overflow.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for landing, which resulted in a main landing gear collapse.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC13CA020
- Event ID
- 20130122X82442
- Case number
- ANC13CA020
- 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: 3f564f4596e0b75193366bad0adce3a8aef358c3d74eb9f66c594ee27ee6d889; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:47:20.320Z.