MIA00LA238 · Cessna 152
Philair Flight Center Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV) to Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA238
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N93589
- Operator
- Philair Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV)To Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), Daytona Beach, FL
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 engine power
- 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; 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Miscellaneous, not identified
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor stated that during climb after takeoff, the engine lost power and the rpm dropped to about 2,100. He took the controls from the student and initiated a left turn back toward the airport. When he realized he could not make the airport, he landed in trees. A witness stated the engine did not sound like it was producing full power from the beginning of takeoff roll and the airplane made a long takeoff roll using about two thirds of the 4,158 foot runway. After liftoff, the airplane climbed slow and the pilot's initiated a turn to the left with a nose high attitude. The airplane stalled and the left wing dropped. The airplane descended and crashed into the trees. He heard the engine continue to run until the airplane crashed. Postcrash examination of the engine showed the spark plugs were fouled with carbon and lead deposits and the propeller blades were bent forward. The engine was started and operated roughly to 1,700 rpm. After cleaning the plugs and changing the bent propeller, the engine was started and operated to 2,200 rpm, full static rpm.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to identify a partial loss of engine power during takeoff roll, and his failure to maintain airspeed while attempting to return to the airport after takeoff resulting in the airplane stalling and descending uncontrolled until impact with trees and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA238
- Event ID
- 20001212X21799
- Case number
- MIA00LA238
- 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: d4114c3cb8808775f166c3db4cd1e44a612813bd3d84201c0c7e4131f22a47b9; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:07:00.297Z.