CHI97LA168 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to BFK · IN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA168
- 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 150G
- 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
- N3787J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo BFK · IN
- 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
- 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
- Stall/mush; 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(cfi) › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor (CFI) and student pilot made a landing in a bean field located adjacent to the student's house. The landing had not been briefed prior to the flight. The bean field was about 2,200 feet in length. Obstacles at the departure end of the field included a small hill, trees, and powerlines. The student pilot reported that the CFI said, 'My aircraft,' during the takeoff roll. The CFI reported the airplane rotated normally, but he felt a 'major power loss' during the climb. He reported lowering the nose and then he saw the powerlines. The airplane hit the powerlines and impacted the ground. The student pilot reported he did not hear the engine stop and believed the propeller continued running. A witness reported the airplane went into a nose high attitude, and then banked left, striking the ground left wing first. He reported the engine was running continuously. An engine teardown did not reveal any anomalies.
Probable cause
the instructor pilot stalled the aircraft as a result of inadequate preflight planning. Factors included the transmission wire, the rising terrain, and the trees at the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA168
- Event ID
- 20001208X08081
- Case number
- CHI97LA168
- 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 1997-06-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c3e60ccac987d833b9c6a1ccd253085caee806e83523a4b5ec734b0e166aae96; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:01:49.102Z.