FTW92LA196 · Cessna 150F
Cessna 150F · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Nassau Bay, TX (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA196
- 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
- N6650F
- Operator
- Chambers, Thomas R. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nassau Bay, TX (no airport)To 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
- 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 (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, inadvertent use
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT AND HIS PASSENGER WERE DEPARTING FROM THE PRIVATE AIRSTRIP WHEN THE PILOT NOTED A 200 RPM DROP ON THE ENGINE TACHOMETER. THE PILOT ESTIMATED HIS ALTITUDE TO BE 120 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. THE PILOT STATED THAT HOUSES WERE BELOW THE AIRPLANE SO HE ELECTED TO CONTINUE TOWARD THE LAKE. AFTER CLEARING THE RESIDENTIAL AREA, THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED OVER THE LAKE AND THE PILOT DITCHED INTO THE WATER AT 40 MPH. BEFORE THE AIRPLANE SANK, THE PILOT AND PASSENGER EXITED AND WERE PICKED UP BY A NEAR BY BOATER. THE FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE AIRPLANE AND NOTED THE CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL IN THE FULL 'ON' POSITION. NO AIRCRAFT MECHANICAL ANOMALIES WERE NOTED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT USE OF CARBURETOR HEAT DURING TAKEOFF. THE LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN FOR A FORCED LANDING WAS A FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA196
- Event ID
- 20001211X15169
- Case number
- FTW92LA196
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-07-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 67dc2e33d90f31f9ce87a6948b055d4b16d37005177241e1e307226bec6a5f74; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:11:35.136Z.