Webster James M Cessna A185 F accident
Cessna A185 F · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Nuiqsut, AK to Nuiqsut, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC20LA046
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
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
- N5454E
- Operator
- Webster James M
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nuiqsut, AKTo Nuiqsut, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1980)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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 was conducting a commercial flight in his wheel/ski-equipped airplane with one passenger onboard in support of an arctic research project. He had overflown a potential landing site on a snow-and-ice-covered lake at a low altitude, and the area was determined to be unsuitable for landing. According to the passenger, after overflying the area the pilot initiated a left turn, toward the shoreline to return to their destination and subsequently impacted the ground.
GPS data from the accident flight revealed that the airplane flew along the north shore of the lake at a GPS altitude of about 136 ft variable to 232 ft before initiating a left turn and descending until it impacted terrain.
The passenger stated that the pilot had not voiced any concerns before the accident with regard to any preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation and the plane sounded “good” during the accident flight.
While the passenger reported a cabin and potential vegetation and terrain features visible in the left turn just before impact, it is likely that cloud conditions and snow-covered terrain present in the area resulted in flat light conditions, which would have hindered the pilot’s ability to perceive terrain features and closure rates.
Probable cause
The pilot’s controlled flight into flat snow-covered terrain in weather conditions that were conducive to flat light conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC20LA046
- Event ID
- 20200515X12520
- Case number
- ANC20LA046
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-05-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a846b58097ced7f876e1197a7f8a52f4611598eedf33ea3af0ef8fdfb9790950; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:14:41.520Z.