CHI92FA282 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From C13 to St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92FA282
- 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
- 1 · 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N4591P
- Operator
- Legends, R.E. & J.K. Brown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From C13To St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), St. Louis, MO
- 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)
- 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/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TURNING AS IF TO RETURN FOR LANDING. A WITNESS REPORTED OBSERVING IT MANEUVERING TO LINE UP FOR A LANDING ON THE RUNWAY OPPOSITE ITS TAKEOFF RUNWAY. THE WITNESS STATED HE OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE WINGS LEVEL AND MOVING SIDEWAYS. THE AIRPLANE THEN STALLED AND SPUN TO THE GROUND. ON-SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE LANDING FLAPS WERE FULLY EXTENDED. THE AIRPLANE WAS EQUIPPED WITH AN FAA-APPROVED SHORT TAKEOFF OR LANDING (STOL) WING MODIFICATION. THE HEIGHT OF THE WING FLOW FENCES WERE FOUND TO BE INCORRECT ACCORDING TO THE STC DRAWINGS. AN FAA TEST PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD REQUIRED THAT THE FLOW FENCES BE LOWERED DUE TO AERODYNAMIC INSTABILITIES WITH FENCES TOO HIGH. OTHER SIMILAR AIRPLANES WERE FOUND WITH THE WING FLOW FENCES TOO HIGH. INVESTIGATION INTO THE PILOT'S FLYING HABITS REVEALED THAT HE OFTEN PERFORMED WING'S LEVEL RUDDER TURNS. THE INVESTIGATION ALSO REVEALED A PARTIAL MAGNETO FAILURE WHICH WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN A PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER.
Probable cause
PILOT DID NOT MAINTAIN A PROPER AIRSPEED WHICH LED TO AN INADVERTENT STALL/SPIN AT A LOW ALTITUDE WHERE THE PILOT COULD NOT PERFORM A RECOVERY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92FA282
- Event ID
- 20001211X15646
- Case number
- CHI92FA282
- 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: 66d5418bca0acdceb3418c4ccbac563cbbd2b643aad1dc2296a00da00c34b60a; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:55:29.744Z.