ERA14CA021 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: loss of visual reference during landing
From Northeast Carry, ME to Northeast Carry, ME
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA021
- 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
- N93037
- Operator
- Thomas Coleman
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Carry, METo Northeast Carry, ME
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1976)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 visual reference
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, night was approaching when he landed the seaplane on a lake and taxied to shore to find out he was at the wrong destination. The pilot began to taxi along the shore, but then decided to take off again to regain his bearings and land at his intended destination. At the time of the takeoff, night had already fallen, the moon was full, there were no clouds and lighting was flat. Surface conditions were "full glass" with no ripples, and the airplane's navigation lights and landing lights were illuminated. The pilot flew the airplane out over the lake, intending to make a 180-degree turn and land back towards a dock. During the final turn, he lost "visual height reference," and after leveling the wings, he set up for a low-sink-rate, glassy water landing. He thought the airplane was about 100 feet above the water when it was only "mere feet" above the surface, which the airplane impacted at a high speed and a high sink rate. Upon impact, the floats tore off the airplane, which then nosed over. Both occupants exited, and as they were swimming to shore, they were picked up by a boat. The pilot did not note any preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Federal Aviation Administration publication FAA-H-023 states, "night landings in seaplanes on open water are extremely dangerous with a high possibility of damage or loss of the seaplane. A night landing should only be performed in an extreme emergency when no other options are available." It also notes that glassy water conditions can make accurate depth perception very difficult, even for experienced pilots.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to take off for an intended night water landing, and his subsequent loss of depth perception during that landing attempt.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA021
- Event ID
- 20131024X95155
- Case number
- ERA14CA021
- 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: 17ad22c99f3d26961a883f5f3a15dd1a8a9fe923bc7ddb45e396a9ee8f68ab9c; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:01:46.878Z.