MIA00LA100 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Morristown Regional Airport (MOR) to Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport (GKT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA100
- 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
- N6753S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morristown Regional Airport (MOR), Morristown, TNTo Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport (GKT), Sevierville, TN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel contamination; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
- Pilot in command › Precautionary landing, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot said that the airplane's engine had been operating roughly, and had sputtered a few times during the flight, so he decided to land at his private landing strip and have his mechanic work on the engine. As he was maneuvering to land, the student said the engine sputtered again, so he pulled the primer out and pushed it back in and it ran a little, but knew he was not going to make it to the landing strip, so he made a forced landing in the trees. Postcrash examination of the aircraft by FAA inspectors revealed that the fuel in the gascolator was cloudy, orange in color, and contained a small quantity of water. The inspectors also said they found corrosion as well as sediment that appeared to be fuel tank sealant in the gascolator bowl. When they removed the fuselage fuel drain, almost pure water came out of the drain.
Probable cause
the student pilot's improper preflight that resulted in his operating an aircraft with contaminated fuel that resulted in a loss of engine power and a forced landing in the trees and damage to the aircraft. Contributing to the accident were the student's continued flight with known engine problems and his not performing a precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA100
- Event ID
- 20001212X20544
- Case number
- MIA00LA100
- 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: f72f888f4005239140391764ee5ecdc71ce0e07efef51e38beb81cd47ff7678a; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:42:16.104Z.