MIA98LA249 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From Burlington Alamance Regional Airport (BUY) to Raleigh Regional Airport at Person County (TDF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA249
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N48195
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burlington Alamance Regional Airport (BUY), NCTo Raleigh Regional Airport at Person County (TDF), Roxboro, NC
- 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 · roll/run
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew to a nearby airport and performed 5 full-stop taxi back landings, all without using carburetor heat. He then circled his father's house 2 times, and flew to another nearby airport where he performed 2 simulated engine failures in the traffic pattern by retarding the throttle to idle in each case. Each landing was just past the numbers of the 5,000 foot-long asphalt runway. During the second go-around, he noted that the airplane required about 2/3's of the runway to accelerate to 60 knots, but he continued the takeoff. He leveled off to accelerate then began to climb at the departure end of runway during which he noted that the tachometer was indicating 2,000 rpm. While at traffic pattern altitude, the engine began to surge. He maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing on an expressway and while descending, the airplane collided with a power line, followed by a vehicle, and then the ground. Examination of the engine revealed no evidence of pre-impact failure or malfunction. The pilot reported only using carburetor heat during the engine run-up before the initial takeoff. Review of the pilot's operating handbook revealed carburetor heat is required to be applied before throttle reduction. Review of the icing probability chart revealed the conditions were favorable for serious icing with descent power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff after recognizing that the airplane was slow to accelerate during the takeoff roll, and his not obtaining/maintaining clearance with the wire during the forced landing. Contributing factors were carburetor icing conditions, the pilot's improper use of carburetor heat while performing touch-and-go landings, and the wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA249
- Event ID
- 20001211X11134
- Case number
- MIA98LA249
- 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 1998-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5e3b0b312bda2661c3458310ccd9cfccc3052ed975fc23b64f6d75400a325572; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:41:35.539Z.