MIA90LA156 · Cessna 150
Treasure Coast Flight Academy Cessna 150 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Leesburg International Airport (LEE) to Witham Field (SUA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90LA156
- 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 150
- 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
- N8761S
- Operator
- Treasure Coast Flight Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Leesburg International Airport (LEE), Leesburg, FLTo Witham Field (SUA), Stuart, 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
- En route · descent
- 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)
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Planning/decision, poor
- Terrain condition › Other
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT STATED THAT WHILE HE WAS IN A VFR DESCENT FOR LANDING, PASSING THROUGH 1400 FEET AGL THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. ENGINE RESTART WAS INITIATED WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS. INSPECTION OF THE FUEL GUAGES BY PLT INDICATED LEFT FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY, AND RIGHT FUEL TANK INDICATED 1/8 TANK. PLT STATED THERE WAS INSUFFICIENT ALTITUDE TO LAND AT THE AIRFIELD. EMERGENCY LANDING WAS MADE ON A DIKE. TO CLEAR BARRIERS ON FINAL APPROACH, THE PLT APPLIED AFT PRESSURE ON THE FLIGHT CONTROLS. THE AIRPLANE STALLED AND COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND. THE AIRPLANE WAS DESTROYED. THE PLT RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES. INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE BY THE REGISTERED OWNER REVEALED THE FUEL TANKS WERE EMPTY AND NOT RUPTURED. THE HOBBS METER INDICATED THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN OPERATED FOR 4.0 HOURS. THE PILOT STATED TO THE NTSB INVESTIGATOR-IN-CHARGE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL THAT HE EXPERIENCED FUEL EXHAUSTION AFTER ENCOUNTERING STRONG HEADWINDS.
Probable cause
FUEL EXHAUSTION DUE TO IMPROPER PLANNING BY THE PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90LA156
- Event ID
- 20001212X23763
- Case number
- MIA90LA156
- 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 1990-07-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b127bb0322644ad9d4224485c2d032bdd7763d3c51976b4f3902d3d22449bc2c; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:48:17.773Z.