LAX98LA125 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Sonoma Valley Airport (0Q3) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA125
- 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
- N2952J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sonoma Valley Airport (0Q3)To 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Engine shutdown, intentional
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Visual lookout, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructor pilot and student pilot were preparing for the student pilot's private pilot check ride. Both pilot's remember practicing maneuvers for 40 minutes before returning to the airport to practice soft and short field takeoff's and landings. On the landing preceding the accident takeoff the instructor simulated an engine failure and the student landed without any difficulty. On the accident takeoff the student pilot raised the flaps and the instructor simultaneously leaned the mixture to simulate a power loss. The instructor took over on the controls when the student did not recognize the situation. He attempted a restart of the engine, while the student flew the aircraft to an open field. While attempting to restart the engine the instructor observed a power line and instructed the student to fly underneath the power line. Both pilot's stated that on the last attempt to restart the engine, it started. They both looked up and saw power lines and attempted to maneuver the aircraft underneath the power lines. The student pilot stated that his instructor did not indicate to him that he was going to simulate an engine failure.
Probable cause
The instructor pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision and subsequent inadequate supervision of the situation to simulate an engine failure on takeoff, as well as both pilot's not maintaining a visual lookout. A related factor was the diverted attention of both the instructor and student pilot's.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA125
- Event ID
- 20001211X09722
- Case number
- LAX98LA125
- 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 1998-03-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 644085ef837ed00f39c5682586f8589cd5367334a20eea4886b28b7f5a00997f; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:35:53.658Z.