NYC93LA031 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From I78 · Marysville, OH to I78
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC93LA031
- 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
- N6402S
- Operator
- George Wharton
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From I78 · Marysville, OHTo I78
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Exhaust system, muffler › Cracked
- Pilot in command › Physical impairment(carbon monoxide)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS IN RADIO CONTACT WITH THE CONTROL TOWER AT THE DESTINATION AIRPORT AND IN A DESCENT FROM FIVE THOUSAND FEET TO TWO THOUSAND FEET IN PREPARATION FOR LANDING. SEVEN MILES SOUTH OF THE AIRPORT, THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED, ON RADAR, FLYING AWAY FROM THE AIRPORT WHEN RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. GROUND WITNESSES SAW THE AIRPLANE FLYING STRAIGHT AND LEVEL AT A LOW ALTITUDE OVER A WOODED AREA WHEN THE LEFT WING STRUCK A TREE. A TOXICOLOGY ON THE PILOT REVEALED CARBON MONOXIDE IN THE PILOT'S BLOOD. EXAMINATION OF THE LEFT HEATER/EXHAUST MUFFLER, THE SOURCE OF HEAT TO THE CABIN, SHOWED IT HAD DETERIORATED AND HAD THREE CRACKS. TWO CRACKS WHERE FOUND ON THE MUFFLER TUBE AND ONE ON THE FORWARD END PLATE. THE THREE CRACKS WERE INTERGRANULAR AND SHOWED SOME OXIDATION.
Probable cause
PILOT INCAPACITATION DUE TO CARBON MONOXIDE GAS AS A RESULT OF CRACKS IN THE HEATER MUFFLER. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PROGRESSIVE DETERIORATION OF THE LEFT HEATER MUFFLER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC93LA031
- Event ID
- 20001211X15954
- Case number
- NYC93LA031
- 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: f7e984bd5888a2f98a184769082eb87857705d6ac11d5ebb4898910741cb04a2; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:39:40.269Z.