NYC99LA185 · Cessna 150
Millstone Valley Flight School Cessna 150 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Central Jersey Regional Airport (47N) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA185
- 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
- N714HS
- Operator
- Millstone Valley Flight School
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Central Jersey Regional Airport (47N), Manville, NJTo 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
- En route · climb to 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
- 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, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Manville, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, the CFI noticed that the airspeed 'began to decay;' however, the engine was still producing power, as he performed a forced landing to a field. After exiting the airplane, the CFI explained to the passenger that they had 'not produced enough power to gain altitude,' because they may have been 'too big' and it was 'too hot' of a day for the airplane to perform. Examination of the engine revealed no pre-impact malfunction, and the carburetor heat control was observed extended in the mid range position, which was consistent to the lever located at the carburetor heat box. According to the airplane manual, the takeoff checklist procedure includes assuring the carburetor heat is in the cold position. The basic empty weight of the airplane was 1,109 pounds and the maximum takeoff weight was 1,600 pounds. The passenger and CFI weights were reported as 250 and 200 pounds, respectively. The pilot determined there was 14 gallons of fuel onboard the airplane before takeoff. According to the temperature and elevation reported at the airport, the density altitude was calculated as 1,747 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the checklist and improper use of the carburetor heat. A factor in the accident was determined to be the density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA185
- Event ID
- 20001212X19351
- Case number
- NYC99LA185
- 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: 60cd3859c291ed4cd8e33a15cc608ec5cbfa632f6129a19b2d9510b3962fa7f4; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:27:22.462Z.