NYC00LA121 · Cessna 150D
Cessna 150D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Red Stewart Airfield (40I) to Cincinnati West Airport (I67)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA121
- 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 150D
- 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
- N4182U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Red Stewart Airfield (40I)To Cincinnati West Airport (I67), Harrison, OH
- 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
- Total 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
- Fuel system › Water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the pilot's preflight, he found water in the right fuel tank and sump, which he drained until they were completely free of the water. He then started up the airplane, went through all the ground checks, and flew the airplane about 39 statute miles without any problems. He landed the airplane, and shut down the engine for approximately 20 minutes. He then restarted the engine, taxied the airplane to the runway, and made a full-throttle, soft-field takeoff. During the takeoff run, the engine sounded like it was making full power, but the airplane appeared to take longer than normal to build up airspeed. Once airborne, about 75 to 100 feet, the engine sputtered, then quit. Approaching an open field, the airplane's landing gear hit an electrical power line. The airplane stalled, then dropped from a height of about 25 feet. The nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane flipped over. During a post-accident inspection, about 4 ounces of liquid were found in the carburetor bowl, all of which, was water. The pilot stated that he had previously had problems with water in the fuel system.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight, and the water that remained in the fuel system after the preflight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA121
- Event ID
- 20001212X20906
- Case number
- NYC00LA121
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 122dcc6d520acec8ac1c73466624880d07f3499c30b84f307d68a1f9e81a6736; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:56:46.341Z.