NYC94LA013 · Cessna C-150
Cessna C-150 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94LA013
- 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 C-150
- Aircraft type
- Cessna C-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
- N704US
- Operator
- Michael R. Havermehl · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft control, abrupt
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT AND PASSENGER WERE DRINKING AT A LOCAL INN. THE PILOT INVITED THE PASSENGER TO GO FLYING IN THE PILOT'S LEASED AIRPLANE. THE PILOT AND PASSENGER TOOK OFF FROM THE LOCAL AIRPORT. THE FLIGHT WAS ON FINAL APPROACH TO THE RUNWAY ABOUT 0200, WHEN THE PILOT THOUGHT ANOTHER AIRPLANE WAS APPROACHING FROM THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. SHE TURNED THE AIRPLANE TO THE RIGHT, WHERE THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED AND COLLIDED WITH TREES. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE FLAPS WERE FULLY RETRACTED. IT WAS NOT DETERMINED IF THE PILOT WAS SIGNED OFF FOR NIGHT FLIGHT. WITNESSES INDICATED THAT THE PILOT APPEARED IMPAIRED. THE STUDENT PILOT REFUSED BLOOD TESTING REQUESTED BY THE POLICE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ABRUPT CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE ON SHORT FINAL TO THE RUNWAY, WITH THE FLAPS RETRACTED, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL AND THE SUBSEQUENT COLLISION WITH THE TREES. A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT WAS THE POOR JUDGEMENT OF THE STUDENT PILOT TO GO FLYING WITHIN 8 HOURS OF CONSUMING ALCOHOL, AT NIGHT, WITH A PASSENGER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94LA013
- Event ID
- 20001211X13639
- Case number
- NYC94LA013
- 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: eff42748039ea03c9f60745e870053a48cc938530ebb65a7f4089e519ebb33c4; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:07:46.327Z.