NYC96LA045 · Cessna 150J
Cessna 150J · Accident: nose over during landing
From Roadcap Airport (37PA) to N31
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA045
- 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 150J
- 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
- N50836
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roadcap Airport (37PA), SMOKETOWN, PATo N31
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Nose over
- 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
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS CARRYING A PASSENGER. HE OVERFLEW THE AIRPORT TO CHECK RUNWAY CONDITIONS AND WIND. TWO RUNWAYS WERE AVAILABLE. ONE WAS HARD SURFACED, AND HAD BEEN PLOWED, BUT HAD A CROSSWIND. THE OTHER RUNWAY WAS A SNOW COVERED TURF RUNWAY THAT WAS INTO THE WIND. HE ANNOUNCED HIS INTENTIONS ON UNICOM TO LAND ON THE TURF RUNWAY. THE PILOT OF ANOTHER AIRPLANE ADVISED AGAINST LANDING ON THE RUNWAY, BUT DID NOT OFFER ANY RUNWAY CONDITION INFORMATION. THE PILOT CONTINUED WITH THE APPROACH, TOUCHED DOWN, AND AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE WHEELS DUG INTO THE SNOW, AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER. HE REPORTED THAT THE SNOW WAS ABOUT 8 INCHES DEEP, HE PICKED THE RUNWAY BECAUSE IT WAS INTO THE WIND, AND HE THOUGHT THE SNOW WAS HARD PACKED.
Probable cause
the student pilot's selection of an unsuitable runway for landing. The snow covered runway was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA045
- Event ID
- 20001207X05075
- Case number
- NYC96LA045
- 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: 964d5f17ecdc2f05d52efb0da606e8910953ce0df7adca16358efab59ea831c2; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:55:44.043Z.