SEA96LA028 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA028
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N5366M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Carburetor heat, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was departing from a 1,200-foot long wet grass airstrip. Before takeoff, the pilot taxied along the strip several times to check field conditions. During taxi, the engine stopped once but then restarted. The pilot reported that he started his takeoff with carburetor heat off, and that the takeoff was normal until rotating into ground effect, at which point the engine lost 300 to 400 RPM. The pilot stated that he then cycled carburetor heat, but the engine then stopped completely. The pilot landed straight ahead but was unable to stop in the remaining available distance. The airplane struck a ditch at the end of the takeoff area and nosed over onto its back. A nearby weather observation facility was reporting temperature and dewpoint values which, according to a Transport Canada chart, presented a serious carburetor icing hazard at any power.
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command's delayed application of carburetor heat which resulted in a power loss due to carburetor ice. Carburetor icing conditions, a short takeoff area, and a ditch at the end of the airstrip were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA028
- Event ID
- 20001207X05081
- Case number
- SEA96LA028
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-12-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2383228e53d8036c28b206a296ded4c969997472f3aa4be9e2418be8e569b169; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:58:35.250Z.