SEA97LA111 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From 059 · Port Townsend, WA to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA111
- 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
- N7557A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 059 · Port Townsend, WATo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WA
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Distance/speed, misjudged
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While returning to the airport of initial departure after practicing landings at another airport, the engine lost all power. The flight instructor attempted a forced landing in an open field during light rain. During his approach to the field, he allowed his airspeed and altitude to get too high, and he missed his touchdown point. The aircraft initially touched down after passing over two-thirds of the available landing distance, and then bounced back into the air. When it touched down again on the wet grass, there was not enough distance remaining to stop the aircraft prior to it running off the end of the field and colliding with trees. During the investigation, it was revealed that prior to takeoff, the flight instructor had determined the total fuel in the aircraft by allowing the student pilot to dip the tanks with a homemade wooden measuring stick. The instructor did not monitor the student as he made the measurements, but simply took his word for what the measurements were. Based upon those measurements, the instructor estimated that the aircraft had about 11 gallons of fuel onboard prior to departure. After the accident, 1.5 gallons of fuel were found in the left wing, 2.5 gallons were found in the right wing, and one ounce of fuel was found in the carburetor bowl. It was also noted that according to the Pilot's Operating Handbook, of the possible 26 gallons of total fuel capacity, 3.5 gallons are unusable.
Probable cause
Fuel exhaustion due to the flight instructor's failure to insure there was proper fuel in the aircraft and the flight instructor's misjudgment of his altitude and airspeed while executing a power-off forced landing in a large open field. Factors include: a wet landing surface and trees located on the boundary of the field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA111
- Event ID
- 20001208X08024
- Case number
- SEA97LA111
- 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 1997-05-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: af4d7c3378a2c2f93a4b3d13b999a3183679b80402daf7984c9e1b81d2909180; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:27:06.619Z.