ANC96FA059 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Birchwood Airport (BCV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96FA059
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N8115U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birchwood Airport (BCV), BIRCHWOOD, AKTo 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Ignition system, magneto › Malfunction
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, annual inspection, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to information provided by the pilot's family, the pilot went for a local flight prior to a planned church service at 1100. A property owner near the accident site heard the sound of an airplane approaching, a 'small explosion,' and the sound of an impact at 0811. He said the engine sounded normal until he heard the 'small explosion.' Examination of the engine revealed that the left and right magnetos were defective. Bench tests showed a malfunction with each magneto. The airplane had received an annual inspection 40 months prior to the accident. The records showed that the pilot's medical certificate had expired and that he was 28 months overdue for a biennial flight review. An examination of the accident site showed that the accident site was in the shadow of a mountain. The surrounding area showed that a forced landing area was located one-half mile away on a bearing of 320 degrees from the accident site.
Probable cause
loss of engine power due to a malfunction of the airplane's magneto ignition system, and the pilot's failure to have an annual inspection performed. Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's lack of recent experience and inadequate in-flight planning and decision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96FA059
- Event ID
- 20001208X05490
- Case number
- ANC96FA059
- 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: 3b73d563d7a454587c72a61302fd922ad9327c32b036e671d71c4d11c3cf3679; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:22:15.291Z.