DEN92LA073 · Cessna 150
Cessna 150 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From 3V5 to 3V5
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN92LA073
- 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 150
- 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
- N66315
- Operator
- Gates, Robert L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3V5To 3V5
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 › Flare, not performed
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, exceeded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fort Collins, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FOLLOWING TAKEOFF, WHILE CONDUCTING A LOCAL TRAINING FLIGHT, THE ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH AT AN ALTITUDE OF APPROXIMATELY 300 FEET AGL. THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR TOOK CONTROL AND CONDUCTED A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD. TOUCH DOWN WAS HARD AND THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED TWO CYLINDERS WITH EXHAUST VALVES STUCK OPEN. EVIDENCE OF OVERHEAT WAS PRESENT AND ALL ENGINE COOLING DEVICES WERE PROPERLY IN PLACE. THE OPERATOR HAD BRIEFED ALL HIS INSTRUCTORS ON LEANING TO PEAK POWER DUE TO HIGH ALTITUDE PERFORMANCE DEGRADATION.
Probable cause
IMPROPER RATE OF DESCENT AND LACK OF FLARE WHILE CONDUCTING A FORCED LANDING. FACTORS WERE: PARTIAL POWER LOSS DUE TO STUCK EXHAUST VALVES CAUSED BY ENGINE OVERHEAT FROM IMPROPER LEANING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN92LA073
- Event ID
- 20001211X15134
- Case number
- DEN92LA073
- 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: a2d0f59119e655614d2a0e3ee67a8595fd6f23a6a1b0300d2bd35b3e2dfd7a3d; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:12:40.775Z.