FTW98LA135 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From 1M1 · N. LITTLE ROCK, AR to Country Air Estates Airport (1AR9)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA135
- 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
- N3729J
- Operator
- Ryan M. Vestal · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From 1M1 · N. LITTLE ROCK, ARTo Country Air Estates Airport (1AR9)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Aborted takeoff, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor (CFI) elected to take the student to the Sendero Airpark to give the student a chance to experience an 'actual' soft field landing and takeoff. Utilizing the soft field landing technique, the student pilot executed a successful landing on runway 30. For the departure from the airstrip, the CFI stated that he pointed out the pros and cons of the obstacles surrounding the airstrip and elected to depart from runway 12, which was also a customary local procedure at the airstrip. The airplane was configured for a soft field takeoff from the 2,200 foot grass airstrip. During the takeoff roll, the wheels of the airplane encountered a 'very wet and soft spot on the grass runway,' and the airplane decelerated abruptly. The CFI took control of the airplane and closed the throttle to abort the takeoff; however, the airplane overran the end of the airstrip, impacted a drainage ditch, and nosed over. The CFI added that he was not aware that the area had been subjected to heavy thunderstorms and hail the day before the accident. He also stated that 'he hesitated for 3 to 5 seconds before making the decision to abort.'
Probable cause
the flight instructor's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff, and his delayed decision to abort the takeoff. A factor relating to the accident was: the soft/wet area on the turf runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA135
- Event ID
- 20001211X09552
- Case number
- FTW98LA135
- 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: 214a6a823b05ed1af935f90561e2b418f44e3a49b07a99c93906cc52c5d04039; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:00:37.020Z.