LAX97LA033 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Camarillo International Airport (CMA) to Lake Havasu City Airport (HII)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA033
- 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
- N2825V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CATo Lake Havasu City Airport (HII), AZ
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was fully serviced with 22.5 gallons of fuel before flight, and the pilot calculated that slightly less than 17 gallons would be needed. Approaching the destination, the pilot began a power-on, en route, cruise descent at 200 feet per minute. Shortly thereafter, the engine rpm 'dropped slightly for 4-5 seconds,' and then the enigne lost power. The pilot said he was unable to restart the engine, and he prepared for a night forced landing in the desert. Subsequently, the aircraft hit a hillside in a nose high landing attitude, and the nose gear broke off. As the pilot was securing the aircraft, he observed fire in the engine compartment. Subsequently, a postcrash fire consumed the aircraft. During examination of the engine by an FAA airworthiness inspector, no preimpact discrepancy was identified. According to a current weather observation, the sky was clear, the temperature was 67 degrees, and the dew point was 41 degrees. Review of a carburetor icing probability chart showed moderate icing at cruise power and serious icing at glide power.
Probable cause
carburetor ice, and failure of the pilot to use carburetor heat, which resulted in loss of engine power. Factors relating to the accident were: carburetor icing conditions, darkness, and the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA033
- Event ID
- 20001208X07064
- Case number
- LAX97LA033
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-11-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 44330b2e1f3fa23de35e8765e13848ab8cf03221ef8ba08108ce8f8b352fe51a; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:50:16.836Z.