MIA97LA006 · Cessna 150F
Cessna 150F · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From M52 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA006
- 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 150F
- 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
- N7102F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M52To 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
- 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot initially attempted to takeoff with a slight quartering tailwind, but he aborted the takeoff, then initiated a takeoff into the wind. Takeoff distance calculations showed that 1,315 feet would be required to clear a 50-foot obstacle. The airplane was observed to rotate about 4,300 feet down the 5,000 foot runway, climb to about 150 to 200 feet agl, roll left, then pitch nose down. The airplane impacted the ground nose and left wing low. Examination of the flight control systems revealed no evidence of a preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination of the engine revealed that the No. 4 cylinder exhaust valve was open. Dimensional measurements of the exhaust valve stem and the valve guide revealed that they had less then the minimum clearance as required by the overhaul manual. Review of the engine logbooks revealed that the engine was overhauled by an A & P mechanic in 1988. The overhaul manual indicated that after replacement of the exhaust valve guides, they were to be reamed to size. The engine had accumulated 443.96 hours since overhaul at the time of the accident. A pilot, who had flown the accident airplane on a previous flight, noted excessive rpm drop during the carburetor heat check. The airplane owner had been notified of the excessive rpm drop, but review of the maintenance records did not reflect that engine maintenance was performed.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to abort the takeoff after encountering excessive ground roll, and failure (or inability) of the pilot to obtain/maintain adequate airspeed, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. Factors relating to the accident were: restricted movement of the No. 4 cylinder exhaust valve, due to improper engine overhaul by the previous owner/mechanic, and failure of the current owner to perform maintenance after being advised by a pilot of excessive rpm drop during a carburetor heat check.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA006
- Event ID
- 20001208X06946
- Case number
- MIA97LA006
- 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: c1c0e219b34cf62e92b8815f05cb304252d8d5212bf49d35330743089b5120b7; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:22:33.725Z.