FTW97LA110 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Lafayette Regional Airport (LFT) to North Caddo Medical Center Heliport (0LA4)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA110
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N49205
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lafayette Regional Airport (LFT), Lafayette, LATo North Caddo Medical Center Heliport (0LA4), Reserve, LA
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Approach Control was communicating with the pilot approximately 5 minutes prior to the accident and was providing VFR flight following through the Baton Rouge area. They reported that the pilot did not report any abnormalities with the aircraft. According to FAA records, the pilot got weather briefings from Automated Flight Service Stations before and during the flight. According to seven witness observations of people who were working on a levee adjacent to the accident site, the aircraft was in level flight, cruising over the Mississippi river at a low altitude beneath low clouds. One witness recalled seeing the aircraft approach high tension power lines which were traversing the river and perpendicular to the flight path. The aircraft impacted the lines, became hung up momentarily, and then fell into the river. Five of the witnesses heard the sound of an engine prior to the wire impact. The 2 power line support structures were 425 feet in height. Examination of the wreckage revealed wire strike marks beneath the right wing near the wing support strut attachment point. Throttle and mixture levers were both full forward and the tachometer needle was found at 2,500 RPM.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain proper altitude and clearance from transmission wires. Factors were, the dark night, low cloud ceiling, and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA110
- Event ID
- 20001208X07407
- Case number
- FTW97LA110
- 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: 6dce192b54b6efa3f49ab46390f95a2153d04c6cf58c743eddf33b1c92aaf578; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:02:12.297Z.