NYC96LA155 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From 7B2 · Minot, ME to 3B5
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA155
- 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 150G
- 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
- N3269J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 7B2 · Minot, METo 3B5
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pitot/static system › Blocked(total)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Turner, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off on a short flight to a nearby airport. He reported that as he approached the destination airport to land, the airspeed indicated about 45 to 50 mph with vibrations. As he flared to land, the airplane floated about 6 feet above the grass landing area with no stall characteristics. The airplane did not seem to slow sufficiently, so the pilot made a go-around. He indicated that he began a gradual climb, but kept the nose down to build airspeed. He started a right turn as he neared the departure end of the runway. The airplane cleared a building, but the wingtip struck a utility pole. The airplane then descended to the ground and came to rest on a street. An FAA examination of the airplane revealed the pitot tube cover was on the pitot tube. The pilot reported that this was the first time he had used the cover after it had been missing for several months.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, by failing to remove the pitot tube cover, which resulted in false airspeed indications, and his failure to maintain adequate obstacle clearance from a utility pole.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA155
- Event ID
- 20001208X06350
- Case number
- NYC96LA155
- 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: 8efc0dc7289b929566061edfa3dbd592e8265db648bc9818189d62f20c87766d; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:39:08.689Z.