BFO88FA022 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Mallory Airport (WV12) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO88FA022
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N9399U
- Operator
- Merry R. Casto · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mallory Airport (WV12)To 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
- Initial climb
- 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 engine power
- 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
- 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(cfi) › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STU PLT SAID THE ENGINE BEGAN TO ALTERNATE BETWEEN PARTIAL AND FULL POWER DURING THE INITIAL TKF CLIMB. THE ACFT WAS ABOUT 100 FT AGL AND ABOUT 300 FT PAST THE RWY END. ACCORDING TO THE STU THE INST TOOK CONTROL OF THE ACFT, TURNED LEFT, REVERSED COURSE AND HEADED TOWARD A TAXIWAY ON THE ARPT. THE TAXIWAY IS ORIENTED EAST-WEST AND IS EAST OF AND ALMOST PERPENDICULAR TO THE RWY USED FOR TKF, RWY 15. THE STU COULD NOT RECALL WHETHER THE ACFT LOST OR GAINED ALTITUDE DURING THE APPROACH TO THE RWY; HOWEVER HE SAID THE ACFT STAYED ABOVE THE ARPT. A WITNESS SAID HE HEARD ENGINE SOUNDS AS THE ACFT REVERSED COURSE. ACCORDING TO THE STU AS THEY NEARED THE TAXIWAY THE ACFT WAS STILL IN A LEFT TURN WHEN SUDDENLY IT STRUCK TREES ABOUT 200 FT SHORT OF THE EAST END OF THE TAXIWAY. A WITNESS SAID THE ACFT STALLED BEFORE IT STRUCK TREES. THE STU WAS RESCUED FROM THE ACFT BUT THE ACFT EXPLODED BEFORE THE INSTR COULD BE RESCUED. TWO RESCUERS WERE INJURED IN THE EXPLOSION. FIRE DAMAGE PRECLUDED DETERMINATION OF LOSS OF POWER. THE ACFT USED AUTO GAS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO88FA022
- Event ID
- 20001213X25010
- Case number
- BFO88FA022
- 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: 23c88891b3cce2054b5822422ea2560fff1563cdc5480e143fc9873d773c2eb3; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:48:47.236Z.