ATL97FA034 · Cessna A150L
Cessna A150L · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Pryor Field Regional Airport (DCU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97FA034
- 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
- 2 · 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 A150L
- 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
- N50TB
- Operator
- Billy D. Parker · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pryor Field Regional Airport (DCU), Decatur, ALTo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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; Tree(s); Wire, transmission
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A few minutes after takeoff, the airplane was next seen flying in the vicinity of the accident site. One eyewitness stated that when the airplane first flew overhead, it was just above the tree tops. Another eyewitness observed the airplane as the pilot made several low passes. On the last low pass, the pilot initiated a steep climb which terminated in what was described as a 'hammerhead stall.' The airplane entered a spin, descended from about 500 feet, and crashed adjacent to a single family dwelling, hitting a tree and utility line as it descended to the ground. All aircraft components were located in the immediate vicinity of the main wreckage. Subsequent examination of the engine assembly failed to disclose a mechanical problem. Examination of the airframe and aircraft systems also failed to disclose a mechanical problem.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain flying airspeed, while maneuvering at low altitude, which resulted in a stall and subsequent collision with a tree, utility line, and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97FA034
- Event ID
- 20001208X07374
- Case number
- ATL97FA034
- 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: e701008ca8dfe4e47b8149d78b4dd3d27fc527b20c584a3b2b37f2902a01b9c5; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:03:01.132Z.