LAX99LA155 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Sutter County Airport (O52) to Shelter Cove Airport (0Q5)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA155
- 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
- 0
- 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 150H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N22710
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sutter County Airport (O52), CATo Shelter Cove Airport (0Q5), Shelter Cove, CA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Fatigue
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While cruising, the pilot felt a 'bump,' and the engine began losing power. The pilot applied carburetor heat and adjusted the mixture control, but this action had no effect. The engine progressively lost all power until the propeller eventually just windmilled. The pilot made a forced landing in a wheat field. During rollout, the airplane encountered uneven terrain and nosed over. The pilot owned and operated the airplane. He reported that the airframe's total time was about 8,798.6 hours. The engine had been operated for 1,818.9 hours since being overhauled, and 133.4 hours since its last inspection. An examination of the engine revealed its No. 2 cylinder exhaust valve was fatigued and broken. No other engine related malfunctions were observed.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power resulting from the fatigue failure of a cylinder's exhaust valve. A contributing factor was the uneven terrain at the forced landing site. The reason for the fatigue could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA155
- Event ID
- 20001205X00502
- Case number
- LAX99LA155
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 872cc416de79df11579ecb5506b222e3263128785994a18d4a0ac8b9cf58eaf0; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:26:48.658Z.