ATL91LA032 · Cessna 150J
Cessna 150J · Accident: overrun during landing
From Henderson Field (ACZ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA032
- 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 150J
- 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
- N60840
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Henderson Field (ACZ), Wallace, NCTo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Raising of flaps, not performed
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ELECTED TO FLY HIS AIRPLANE TO A FRIEND'S FARM RATHER THAN THE LOCAL AIRPORT. SINCE THERE WAS NO AIRSTRIP AT THE FARM, THE PILOT AND THE FARM OWNER OBTAINED A FIRE TRUCK AND DROVE IT BACK AND FORTH OVER A PLOWED DIRT FIELD TO MAKE A LANDING SURFACE. THE PILOT THEN FLEW HIS AIRPLANE OVER TO THE FARM FOR LANDING. UPON TOUCHDOWN, HE COULD NOT LOWER THE NOSEWHEEL TO THE GROUND DUE TO THE ROUGH, UNEVEN CENTERLINE. HE ALSO FORGOT TO RAISE HIS FLAPS UPON LANDING. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE FIRE TRUCK, WHICH WAS PARKED AT THE END OF THE 'RUNWAY'. IT THEN STRUCK AN IRON BAR AND ANOTHER VEHICLE BEFORE COMING TO A STOP. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE HAD LANDED ON SIMILAR SURFACES ABOUT 80 TIMES BEFORE. AN FAA INSPECTOR REPORTED THAT THE ENTIRE RUNWAY SURFACE WAS VERY ROUGH, WITH RUTS, HOLES, AND TIRE TRACKS.
Probable cause
PILOT'S SELECTION OF UNSUITABLE TERRAIN FOR LANDING HIS AIRPLANE AND HIS FAILURE TO RAISE THE FLAPS AFTER LANDING. THIS RESULTED IN HIS INABILITY TO DECELERATE DURING THE LANDING ROLL. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE ROUGH, UNEVEN RUNWAY CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA032
- Event ID
- 20001212X24721
- Case number
- ATL91LA032
- 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: 2930e054c3c7367e587e60197c7489bfcbb712d2df499850ad761b2c9b6ca227; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:02:32.195Z.