LAX93LA254 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From L12 · Redlands, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA254
- 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 150L
- 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
- N19507
- Operator
- George E. Whittington · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L12 · Redlands, CATo 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 · climb to 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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) › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR SAID HE WAS DEMONSTRATING AN ENGINE OUT FORCED LANDING PROCEDURE TO HIS STUDENT. ON BASE LEG FOR THE SELECTED LANDING AREA THE INSTRUCTOR DECIDED TO TERMINATE THE EXERCISE. HE SAID HE APPLIED FULL POWER AND BEGAN A CLIMB AT BEST ANGLE OF CLIMB AIRSPEED. THE AIRCRAFT COULD NOT OUT CLIMB THE RISING TERRAIN AND SETTLED ONTO ITS LANDING GEAR AT ABOUT THE 3,750 FOOT MSL LEVEL OF SOME HILLY TERRAIN. AS THE AIRCRAFT ROLLED ALONG THE NOSE GEAR ENCOUNTERED SOFT SOIL AND THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER ONTO ITS BACK. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THERE WAS NO MECHANICAL FAILURE OF THE ENGINE OR AIRFRAME. THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS CALCULATED AT ABOUT 6,000 FEET.
Probable cause
the flight instructor's selection of unsuitable terrain for the forced landing demonstration. A factor in the accident was the high density altitude existing at the time of the mishap.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA254
- Event ID
- 20001211X12653
- Case number
- LAX93LA254
- 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: 411d0a22cc5616f3693f331e108d4fe4a62e9f75d51c402d1471f3e9d733b7bf; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:59:05.984Z.