MIA96LA159 · Cessna 150M
Raleigh East Aviation Cessna 150M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From W-17 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA159
- 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 150M
- 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
- N47ES
- Operator
- Raleigh East Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W-17To 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
- 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, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor (CFI) informed the student pilot to descend power off from 3,000 feet to 2,500 feet. The carburetor heat was not activated by the student pilot or CFI. About 1 minute after the student pilot leveled off at 2,500 feet, the CFI initiated a simulated forced landing. The student pilot overshot the forced landing area, and the CFI took control of the airplane and increased power. The engine would not produce full power and quit. The CFI made a forced landing in a tobacco field, and the airplane nosed over on touchdown. An examination of the engine was made, but no preimpact mechanical failure was found. The reported temperature and dew point were 86 and 70 degrees, respectively. According to icing probability charts, conditions at glide power were conducive to serious carburetor ice.
Probable cause
failure of the flight instructor (CFI) to ensure proper use of the carburetor heat, which resulted in carburetor ice, loss of engine power, and a subsequent emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA159
- Event ID
- 20001208X06066
- Case number
- MIA96LA159
- 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: 212ceae6e9775a366d84f2cbeb2edebbc3abfe65cf3d636561446c559018c3fe; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:12:34.162Z.