FTW99LA039 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Glenn's Strip Ultralightport (LA75) to Lakefront Airport (NEW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA039
- 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 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
- N567G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glenn's Strip Ultralightport (LA75)To Lakefront Airport (NEW), New Orleans, LA
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot, who was receiving dual proficiency training, initiated the short field takeoff from the grass airstrip adjoining the Mississippi River. Then the flight instructor manipulated the flight controls and maneuvered the airplane for the departure climb. Once the airplane had passed over the north end of the runway, the instructor initiated a climbing right turn for a flight path approaching the tree line along the river. The private pilot recalled that the airplane 'stopped flying, started sinking, and suddenly rolled left into a steep spiral.' The flight instructor stated that the airplane 'suddenly rolled violently to the left into a spin.' The flight instructor performed the spin recovery procedure, and after slightly more than one complete revolution, the airplane was recovered on a westerly heading in a 'flattened attitude.' The airplane was too low and the tail struck the top of a levee. The flight instructor reported that turbulence was often encountered crossing the river and the adjacent tree line. He reported the winds were variable from the east at 8 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent stall/spin. Factors were the terrain induced turbulence and the insufficient altitude for recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA039
- Event ID
- 20001211X11433
- Case number
- FTW99LA039
- 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: 4610f870d6dbd6f63d91cbc775e0f1df8b40138b7f9b678db58267f0a66ae60d; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:38:40.535Z.