ANC13CA075 · Cessna 185D
Cessna 185D · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while taxiing
From Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z) to Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC13CA075
- 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 185D
- 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
- N75LE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z), North Pole, AKTo Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z), North Pole, 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 · into takeoff position
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had completed his before takeoff checks, and was taxiing the tailwheel-equipped airplane onto the runway for departure. He added power and initiated a left turn to align the airplane with the runway, while attempting to stop the turn the right brake failed and the airplane ground looped striking the right wing on the gravel runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and aileron.
An examination of the right brake master cylinder revealed that the right brake would not hold pressure and the O-ring within the master cylinder had dried out allowing brake fluid to leak past.
Probable cause
The malfunction of the right main wheel brake during taxi due to a faulty O-ring in the right brake pedal master cylinder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC13CA075
- Event ID
- 20130809X25429
- Case number
- ANC13CA075
- 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: a9e5ef097a158cc59d1023b49819b1df749ca4f8eef7541d64fd2887115d61ba; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:28:24.417Z.