LAX98LA182 · Cessna 150M
Flying Vikings Cessna 150M · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hayward Executive Airport (HWD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA182
- 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 150M
- 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
- N704ZA
- Operator
- Flying Vikings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hayward Executive Airport (HWD)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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Missing
- Terrain condition › Hidden obstruction(s)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After performing air work, the instructor and student were returning to base. The instructor noted a loss of rpm's from 2,300 to 1,100. He took over the aircraft controls from the student and attempted to correct the problem. The instructor noted that the rpm's remained constant at 1,100. He conducted the emergency checklist and informed the tower of the situation. The instructor then landed the aircraft in an open field of high grass during which the aircraft came to rest inverted after the nose wheel struck a hole. The aircraft was examined on-scene and it was noted that the bolt was in place, but that the nut and cotter pin were missing from the carburetor throttle attachment assembly. It was also noted that the aircraft had flown approximately 15 hours since the last annual inspection and maintenance had been performed.
Probable cause
The missing nut/cotter pin on the throttle attachment assembly which resulted in the pilot's inability to control engine power, and the hidden obstruction (hole) in the landing area. A factor was the high vegetation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA182
- Event ID
- 20001211X10345
- Case number
- LAX98LA182
- 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: 6314d9339c7ad9f151a6e826417816ab4ca046d2bd5219655785cd5655e1d0fd; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:49:38.483Z.