GAA19CA513 · Cessna A185 F
Acadian Aircraft Leasing Cessna A185 F · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Rangeley Lake Seaplane Base (M57) to Bangor International Airport (BGR)
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
- GAA19CA513
- 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
- N1920Q
- Operator
- Acadian Aircraft Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rangeley Lake Seaplane Base (M57), Rangeley, METo Bangor International Airport (BGR), Bangor, ME
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 in flight
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while departing from a lake, the float-equipped airplane was not "gaining airspeed as usual" and that the takeoff run was taking "longer." Before attempting to abort the takeoff, the left float lifted off the water, followed by the right float. While in ground effect, the floatplane started to roll right. The pilot corrected with full left aileron, but the floatplane continued to roll right. He then reduced power and applied 40º of flaps, but the floatplane continued to roll right, so he increased the throttle to full, and the right wing impacted the water. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported that the floatplane impacted rocks while he was back taxiing to the dock after a previous flight but that he did not realize the floats had been damaged. Before the accident flight, he conducted a preflight inspection and did not find any residual water in the floats, but he did not examine the bottom of the floats because they were submerged in water. Photographs showed that the right float's keel was damaged.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection of the floats, which led to his subsequent attempt to depart from a lake with damaged floats and led to a loss of roll control and the right wing impacting the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA513
- Event ID
- 20190822X70115
- Case number
- GAA19CA513
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 40d0d5853b332e805650963c0e456a14fd321b74214834d745e1841a055fa640; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:50:59.055Z.