NYC90LA203 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Cape Cod Airport (2B1) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90LA203
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N24894
- Operator
- Mike Bello
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Cod Airport (2B1), MARSTON MILLS, MATo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Provincetown, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT & AN OBSERVER WERE ENGAGED IN A FISH SPOTTING MISSION. WITNESSES ON A BOAT OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE MANEUVER & THEN ENTER INTO A SPIN. IT IMPACTED IN THE WATER BEFORE THE PILOT WAS ABLE TO RECOVER. BODIES OF THE OCCUPANTS WERE FOUND SEVERAL WEEKS LATER. A TOXICOLOGY CHECK OF THE PILOT'S BLOOD SHOWED AN ETHANOL LEVEL OF 34 MG/ML (O.O34%), BUT NO ALCOHOL WAS FOUND IN HIS URINE. THE BLOOD/ALCOHOL WAS BELIEVED TO BE FROM PUTREFACTION. THE OWNER OF THE AIRCRAFT REPORTED THE PILOT HELD A STUDENT PILOT CERTIFICATE & WAS ENDORSED FOR CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT; HOWEVER, A SEARCH OF THE FAA AIRMAN & MEDICAL RECORDS REVEALED NO CURRENT STUDENT PILOT CERTIFICATE/MEDICAL CERTIFICATE.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED AN INADVERTENT STALL/SPIN. PROBABLE FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO FOLLOW PROCEDURES/DIRECTIVES, AND HIS LACK OF PROPER CERTIFICATION (QUALIFICATION) FOR THIS FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90LA203
- Event ID
- 20001212X24118
- Case number
- NYC90LA203
- 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: a699dad07f4064b6ee574d180af6a3062da421fb64b00796de3d15c4eb5397c1; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:18:09.600Z.