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MIA99FA215 · Cessna 150F

6 Aug 1999 · MAPLE, NC, United States

Cessna 150F · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb

From 9W7 to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA99FA215
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
2 · 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
N7059F
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From 9W7To 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
Loss of control in flight
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(vso), not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
  • Pilot in command › Raising of flaps, not performed

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

Witnesses stated that they saw the airplane at an altitude of about 10 to 20 feet on what they believed to be the initial takeoff, just past the midfield of runway 04, with full flaps extended, climbing very slowly. The witnesses further stated that the airplane continued without a significant gain in altitude and approached the trees at the departure end of the runway, well below the tree line. At about 70 to 100 feet the aircraft then appeared to settle, followed quickly thereafter by a slight turn to the left and entry into a spin to the left. The aircraft impacted the terrain in a 90-degree nose-down attitude. An examination of the aircraft engine and flight controls did not reveal any preexisting failure or malfunction. The wing flaps were found in the fully extended position. Forensic toxicology was performed by the FAA Toxicology Laboratory, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on the pilot. The tests were positive for the following: 0.003 (ug/ml, ug/g) tetrahydrocannabinol (marihuana), and 0.012 (ug/ml, ug/g) tetrahydrocannbinol carboxylic acid (marihuana) were detected in the blood, and 0.081 (ug/ml, ug/g) tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid (marihuana) was found in the urine.

Probable cause

the pilot's failure to follow the aircraft's operating checklist and retract the wing flaps for takeoff as specified, as well as the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed (Vso) on initial takeoff climb, which resulted in an inadvertent stall, a spin, and subsequent collision with the terrain. A finding was marihuana in the pilot's blood and urine.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA99FA215
Event ID
20001212X19576
Case number
MIA99FA215
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: 4770be42c69b35f443e0d40fd298304c44fc02353eb4da88b1db4bc880a69f4c; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:55:04.630Z.