BFO94FA082 · Cessna A150L
Cessna A150L · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From St. Mary's County Regional Airport (2W6) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94FA082
- 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 A150L
- 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
- N5964J
- Operator
- Steven J. Bildman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Mary's County Regional Airport (2W6), MDTo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED WHILE MAKING SEVERAL LOW LEVEL CIRCULAR PASSES OVER A RESIDENCE 'THE ENGINE LOST POWER-RPM DROP TO MAYBE 1200...ENGINE POWER CUT IN/OUT A FEW TIMES - A LITTLE VIBRATION TOO.' THE PILOT ADJUSTED THE THROTTLE AND MIXTURE BUT COULD NOT MAKE THE ENGINE REGAIN POWER. HE DITCHED IN A POND LOCATED BEHIND THE RESIDENCE. THE PILOT EXITED THE AIRPLANE AS THE AIRPLANE SANK. THE AIRPLANE WAS RECOVERED FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE POND. A POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION DID NOT REVEAL ANY AIRFRAME OR ENGINE ANOMALIES. THE AIRPLANE HAD APPROXIMATELY SIX GALLONS OF FUEL IN EACH WING TANK. THE CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL WAS IN THE OFF POSITION. THE THROTTLE WAS 1/3 OPEN WITH THE MIXTURE FULL RICH. CONDITIONS FAVORABLE FOR CARBURETOR ICING EXISTED.
Probable cause
IMPROPER USE OF CARBURETOR HEAT BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO CARBURETOR ICE. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE PRESENCE OF CARBURETOR ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94FA082
- Event ID
- 20001206X01221
- Case number
- BFO94FA082
- 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: 109440c4ace74d5d8d5fea5d46d1c517b365368a142d07d9f887afae76bb0d4a; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:04:07.080Z.