NYC98LA078 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From North Buffalo Suburban Airport (0G0) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA078
- 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 150
- 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
- N704GP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Buffalo Suburban Airport (0G0), Lockport, NYTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the airplane's engine experienced a decrease in RPM and began to run rough. The pilot added carburetor heat and the RPM increased. When the pilot removed the carburetor heat the engine began to run rough again, so he reapplied and maintained full carburetor heat. However, after a few moments, the engine began to run rough again. The pilot said he reached his destination airport at an altitude of about 2,500-2,600 feet and began a slow spiral to enter the traffic pattern at 1,400 feet. The engine began to run rougher while in the traffic pattern and the engine lost power during the final approach. The airplane crashed about 1/2 mile from the approach end of the runway. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any pre-impact failures of the airframe or engine. The temperature and dewpoint reported at airports about 10 miles south, and about 45 miles east of the accident site, were 37 and 18 degrees F; and 43 and 21 degrees F, respectively . A carburetor icing probability chart was reviewed and revealed that the weather conditions were at the lower limit of the 'Icing- Glide and Cruise Power' area of the chart.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of altitude and distance during a forced landing in the traffic pattern. A factor in the accident was the carburetor icing conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA078
- Event ID
- 20001211X09763
- Case number
- NYC98LA078
- 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: 507334964810a404077b34e4778b93b67c797adf8db44b76091f76739d69d310; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:58:21.469Z.