FTW98FA190 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 1L9 to Chino Airport (CNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98FA190
- 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
- 2 · 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 150H
- 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
- N50385
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1L9To Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CA
- 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 control in flight
- 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/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane (powered by a 100 horse power engine) was departing from runway 22 (elevation 5,930 feet, density altitude 7,944 feet) and one witness said that it 'appeared to be flying very slow with its nose high.' Another witness reported that 'the engine was putting out everything it had at full RPM and it was smooth.' The flight instructor was seen waving to the people standing in front of the hangar. The above second witness further described the airplane as 'wobbling, struggling and mushing, and then it spun to the ground.' For approximately the last 3 years, the flight instructor had been towing banners in California with a Cessna 150 powered by 180 horse powered engine and modified with a STOL kit. A witness reported that the wind, at the time of the accident, was out of the south 20 to 25 knots gusting 30 to 35 knots. Several other witnesses reported that at the time of the airplane's departure, 'the wind was blowing loose dirt parallel to the ground.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient airspeed and the subsequent inadvertent stall/spin. Factors were the high density altitude, the high, gusty wind condition, and the diverted attention of the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98FA190
- Event ID
- 20001211X09846
- Case number
- FTW98FA190
- 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: 579d61515e9643f8410042d03803ff01ace2b8f82159d8276fc94f5941a2d327; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:37:00.862Z.