MIA91LA006 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during an emergency descent
From Vandenburg Airport, Tampa, FL to Wimauma Air Park (FD77)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA91LA006
- 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 150M
- 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
- N704BB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vandenburg Airport, Tampa, FLTo Wimauma Air Park (FD77), Wimauma, 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
- Emergency 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, annual inspection, not performed
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Terrain condition › Fence
- Terrain condition › Ground
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Tampa, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT DEPARTED RUNWAY 36, VANDENBURG AIRPORT, TAMPA, FLORIDA, IN VFR CONDITIONS ON A VFR CLIMB. NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED. THE AIRPLANE SUSTAINED A PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AT 300 FEET AGL. THE PILOT TURNED BACK TOWARDS THE AIRPORT. THE AIRPLANE WOULD NOT SUSTAIN POWERED FLIGHT. AN EMERGENCY LANDING WAS MADE TO A CLEARING. ON LANDING ROLL, THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A FENCE, SEPARATED THE NOSEWHEEL, AND THE AIRPLANE ROLLED OVER ON ITS BACK SUSTAINING SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE. THE PILOT WAS NOT INJURED. INVESTIGAATION REVEALED, THE PILOT FLEW THE AIRPLANE WITH KNOWN DEFICIENCIES. THE EXHAUST SYSTEM WAS RUSTED OUT, AND THE AIRPLANE WOULD NOT PRODUCE FULL RATED HORSEPOWER. THE ANNUAL INSPECTION WAS OVERDUE 8 1/2 MONTHS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY AN AIRPLANE WITH KNOWN DEFICIENCIES. THIS RESULTED IN A PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER, AND A GROUND COLLISION WITH A FIXED OBJECT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA91LA006
- Event ID
- 20001212X24507
- Case number
- MIA91LA006
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: c5fa027c1866e8720ea95b796156e7fad0783521d0746890ef248c747351726b; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:15:18.662Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "THE PILOT DEPARTED RUNWAY 36, VANDENBURG AIRPORT, TAMPA, FLORIDA"; the departure was not recorded.