CHI92LA003 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From an unrecorded airport to 92G · Pulaski, WI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92LA003
- 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 150M
- 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
- N704CW
- Operator
- James H. Jahnke · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 92G · Pulaski, WI
- 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)
- 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, valve, exhaust › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, valve, intake › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS FLYING A SINGLE ENGINE AIRPLANE ON A SOLO CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT WHEN THE ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH. THE ENGINE LOST APPROXIMATELY 25 PERCENT OF THE ORIGINAL POWER SETTING. THE AIRPLANE WOULD NOT MAINTAIN ALTITUDE AND WAS, ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, 'VIBRATING VERY BADLY.' THE PILOT CHOSE A FIELD WHICH HE BELIEVED SMOOTH AND LEVEL. UPON TOUCHDOWN THE AIRPLANE ROLLED DOWN HILL AND NOSED OVER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL AFTER ITS NOSEGEAR COLLAPSED. INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED FAILED INTAKE AND EXHAUST VALVES, AND A PISTON WITH HOLES IN ITS TOP. THE AIRPLANE WAS OPERATING UNDER AND AUTO GAS STC WHICH ALLOWED THE USE OF THAT FUEL AND ANY MIXTURE COMBINATION OF 100 LL AVIATION FUEL.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE EXHAUST AND INTAKE VALVES. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE DOWNHILL TERRAIN AND A COLLAPSED NOSEGEAR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92LA003
- Event ID
- 20001212X18263
- Case number
- CHI92LA003
- 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: 189ec95c9476fb5fda06b75d8e9b0edab318f69a879925024829ac9ebd860bb0; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:37:37.469Z.