BFO95LA042 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Corry Lawrence Airport (8G2) to Waisley Airport (38PN)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA042
- 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 150
- 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
- N3546V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corry Lawrence Airport (8G2), CORRY-LAWRENCE, PATo Waisley Airport (38PN)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Erie, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING A LOW PASS OVER A GRASS STRIP, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE LOST PARTIAL POWER. THE PILOT OVERFLEW THE STRIP AND ENTERED THE DOWNWIND LEG OF THE TRAFFIC PATTERN. DURING THE APPROACH THE AIRPLANE'S ALTITUDE WAS TOO LOW AND THE PILOT ADDED POWER. THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO 'FLOAT' DOWN THE RUNWAY AND THE ENGINE BEGAN TO BACKFIRE. THE PILOT DECIDED TO DO A GO AROUND, HOWEVER, THE AIRPLANE'S CLIMB RATE WAS DEGRADED AND THE AIRPLANE COULD NOT CLEAR TREES THAT SURROUNDED THE STRIP. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE TREES. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD APPLIED HEAT TO THE CARBURETOR PRIOR TO THE LOW PASS. POSTACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED NO ANOMALIES. THE ENGINE WAS STARTED AND RAN FOR FIVE MINUTES WITH NO ANOMALIES NOTED. CONDITIONS CONDUCIVE TO LIGHT CARBURETOR ICING AT GLIDE OR CRUISE POWER EXISTED.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA042
- Event ID
- 20001207X03238
- Case number
- BFO95LA042
- 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: 800cbe526b5e6a612394813dfbaae74723b5b0e6663c50fba1d87fe5100a8200; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:06:14.352Z.