IAD96LA122 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Fairmont Municipal Airport Frankman Field (4G7) to Philippi Barbour County Regional Airport (79D)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96LA122
- 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 150L
- 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
- N21953
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairmont Municipal Airport Frankman Field (4G7), Fairmont, WVTo Philippi Barbour County Regional Airport (79D), WV
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness stated that she saw the pilot taxi up, get out of the airplane, and asked for fuel. She stated that she thought she had noted a smell of alcohol on his breath, but was not sure. As the pilot was leaving, the witness told the pilot that the nose tire looked as if it was flat, but the pilot appeared to ignored her. Also, another witness at the airport wondered if the pilot had been drinking. One of the witnesses stated that on takeoff, the nose of the airplane seemed excessively high. Both witnesses thought the airplane was going to stall. Minutes later, witnesses saw the airplane flying low over the pilot's son's house. After making one pass and returning, witnesses stated that they saw the airplane impact the top of a tree, fly out of sight, and then heard the sound of an impact. The son arrived on scene, removed the pilot from the wreckage, and attempted CPR, but to no avail. Toxicology tests showed the pilot's blood and urine had alcohol levels of 123 mg/dl and 206 mg/dl, respectively.
Probable cause
the pilot's impairment of judgment and performance due to alcohol, his resultant improper planning/decision, and his failure to maintain sufficient altitude/clearance from trees, while maneuvering at low altitude. Intentional maneuvering at low altitude was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96LA122
- Event ID
- 20001208X06267
- Case number
- IAD96LA122
- 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: c8633451ed014a3fee1edfd78947472e246922739024d5abf0810b364bb97933; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:15:45.413Z.