FTW92LA095 · Cessna 150F
Bay Area Aviation Cessna 150F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA095
- 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 150F
- 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
- N35RJ
- Operator
- Bay Area Aviation
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › Carburetor heat, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT THE ENGINE BEGAN 'SPUTTERING' WHILE HE WAS ON FINAL APPROACH AND THEN QUIT ABOUT 10 SECONDS LATER. REALIZING THAT HE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO MAKE THE ROAD THAT HE HAD CHOSEN FOR THE FORCED LANDING, THE PILOT ELECTED TO LAND IN AN OPEN FIELD. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN HARD IN A THREE POINT ATTITUDE, BOUNCED ONCE, AND THEN IMPACTED THE GROUND IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. THE ICING PROBABILITY CHARTS INDICATED THAT THE THREAT OF SERIOUS CARBURETOR ICING WAS PRESENT FOR THE TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY CONDITIONS THAT EXISTED AT THE TIME.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF CARBURETOR HEAT DURING THE APPROACH IN CARBURETOR ICING CONDITIONS AND HIS IMPROPER FLARE DURING THE EMERGENCY LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA095
- Event ID
- 20001211X14299
- Case number
- FTW92LA095
- 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: 3df048fa48774a21cd06cfc7df8977a2e82fa7f970234c99153b5d366ad6dcb2; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:17:32.311Z.