FTW90LA050 · Cessna 152
Stillwater Flight Center Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Stillwater Regional Airport (SWO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90LA050
- 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
- N5414P
- Operator
- Stillwater Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stillwater Regional Airport (SWO), Stillwater, OKTo 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
- 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
- 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 › Carburetor heat, delayed
- Weather condition › Carburetor icing conditions
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A SOLO SESSION, A STUDENT PILOT ATTEMPTED TO DO A PRACTICE FORCED LANDING. WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE VMC; HOWEVER, THE TEMPERATURE WAS 45 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT AND THE DEW POINT WAS 28 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED RECOVERY BY ADVANCING THE THROTTLE AND APPLYING CARBURETOR HEAT SIMULTANEOUSLY. BECAUSE OF THE LATE APPLICATION OF CARBURETOR HEAT, ICING FORMED AND THE RECOVERY FROM THE PRACTICE FORCED LANDING COULD NOT BE ACCOMPLISHED. A FORCED LANDING WAS ATTEMPTED TO A ROAD; HOWEVER, VEHICULAR TRAFFIC FORCED THE PILOT TO CHANGE LANDING SITES. THE AIRPLANE CONTACTED TREES AND DESCENDED OUT OF CONTROL TO GROUND IMPACT. CONDITIONS WERE CONSISTENT WITH SERIOUS ICING POTENTIAL AT A GLIDE POWER SETTING.
Probable cause
THE POWER LOSS DUE TO CARBURETOR ICE, WHICH RESULTED FROM THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ENGAGE CARBURETOR HEAT IN A TIMELY MANNER. A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90LA050
- Event ID
- 20001212X22419
- Case number
- FTW90LA050
- 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: e90a32eb2aaddc6baa6a8c6d34f67a5cd617a40c1d081fe0b3a09480b65fc35b; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:52:50.632Z.