WPR19LA134 · Cessna A185 F
Cessna A185 F · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Ferndale Airfield (53U) to Glacier Park International Airport (GPI)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA134
- 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 A185 F
- 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
- N185FT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ferndale Airfield (53U), Bigfork, MTTo Glacier Park International Airport (GPI), Kalispell, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1977)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 control on ground
- 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 and his pilot-rated passenger conducted a landing on a turf airstrip when the airplane pulled to the right as it slowed. The pilot was able to make a full stop landing and taxi back to take off. The takeoff was uneventful, so he remained in the airport area for another landing. During that landing, the airplane pulled hard to the right as it slowed. The pilot initiated a balked landing and returned to the original departure airport. During the final landing the airplane touched down on centerline for what initially appeared to be a normal landing. However, shortly after landing the pilot was unable to maintain directional control of the tailwheel equipped airplane and it veered off the right side of the runway, despite the pilot's attempt to correct back to the left with left rudder and braking. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the tailwheel did not turn to the left properly; however, it could not be determined if the anomaly existed before the accident or if it resulted from the accident.
Probable cause
The loss of directional control during landing for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA134
- Event ID
- 20190504X53843
- Case number
- WPR19LA134
- 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: 14c4b46a5864ef1c28dd16d073a86fbc8bc89c737f72bc49fb4b9a3730382fc2; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:53:59.484Z.