CHI92LA216 · Cessna 150H
Buffalo Aircraft Sales Cessna 150H · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Ortonville Municipal Airport/Martinson Field (VVV) to Little Falls-Morrison County-Lindbergh field (LXL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92LA216
- 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
- N22923
- Operator
- Buffalo Aircraft Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ortonville Municipal Airport/Martinson Field (VVV), Ortonville, MNTo Little Falls-Morrison County-Lindbergh field (LXL), Little Falls, MN
- 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 · 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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; Utility pole
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod cap › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO LAND ON A NEARBY ROAD, BUT WAS UNABLE TO SEE POWERLINES AND A UTILITY POLE OBSTRUCTING HIS GLIDE PATH DUE TO A FILM OF OIL ON THE WIND SHIELD FROM THE RUPTURED ENGINE CASE. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE POWERLINES AND POLE AND LANDED IN AN ADJACENT FIELD. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE DISCLOSED A FRACTURED CONNECTING ROD CAP AND ROD CAP BOLT IN THE NUMBER 4 CYLINDER. BOTH OF THE CASTELLATED NUTS WERE GONE FROM THE ROD CAP BOLTS. ONE OF THE BOLTS HAD REMNANTS OF A COTTER KEY REMAINING IN THE KEYWAY, THE OTHER BOLT DID NOT. ONE CASTELLATED NUT FITTING A ROD CAP BOLT WAS FOUND IN THE OIL PAN. THE NUT'S NORMALLY SHARP EDGES WERE WORN SMOOTH AND SHINY, GIVING THE APPEARANCE THE NUT HAD BEEN IN THE SUMP FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. THE ENGINE'S LAST MAJOR OVERHAUL WAS 946 SERVICE HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE FRACTURE OF THE NUMBER FOUR CYLINDER'S CONNECTING ROD CAP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92LA216
- Event ID
- 20001211X15124
- Case number
- CHI92LA216
- 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: 8ae195315fce66492f1dea3edc422bb070b7d9cfb005fa61205ae57fe4497dc3; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:53:24.223Z.