CHI88FA144 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Fort Wayne International Airport (FWA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88FA144
- 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
- 1
- 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 150G
- 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
- N4744X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Wayne International Airport (FWA), FT WAYNE, INTo 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 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; Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUCTOR (CFI) & STUDENT BGN PRACTICING TOUCH-&-GO (T&G) LNDGS. AT 1ST, RWY 31 WAS IN USE. AFTER THE 1ST T&G, THE CFI TOLD THE STUDENT TO CHG TO RWY 5 FOR MORE FAVORABLE WIND CONDS. AT ABT THAT TIME, A COLD FNT WAS MVG THRU THE AREA, A TSTM WAS ABT 5 MI NW OF THE ARPT, THE WX WAS GETTING WINDY & THE CFI NOTED LGT RAIN ON THE WINDSHIELD. DRG THE CLIMB AFTER THE 2ND T&G, THE CFI NOTED THE ACFT HAD STOPPED CLIMBING AT ABT 200' AGL & TOOK CTL OF THE ACFT. LATER, HE SAID THE AIRSPEED WAS ABT 60 TO 65 KTS (BUT THE AIRSPEED INDCR WAS CALIBRATED IN MPH). CONCERNED ABT PWR LINES AHD, HE TURNEDTHE ACFT. HE THEN NOTICED IT WAS DSCNDG RAPIDLY & THE SPEED WAS DWN TO '55 OR MAYBE EVEN 50, WITHOUT REALLY CHANGING THEPITCH ANGLE.' THE ACFT THEN BANKED LEFT & ENTERED A NOSE DWN ATTITUDE. IT CRASHED INTO TREES, 2 VEHICLES & THE GND, THENSLID INTO A MOBILE HOME. CHILD NR MOBILE HOME WAS FATALLY INJURED. CFI THOUGHT FLAPS WERE RETRACTED FOR TKOF, BUT THEY WERE FND EXTDD 15 DEG. CANNABINOIDS FND IN PLT'S URINE, BUT NONE FND IN HIS BLOOD; URINE/PENTOBARBITAL LVL, 0.40 MG/DL.
Probable cause
INADVERTENT STALL/SPIN DUE TO THE FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, AND FAILURE TO AVOID THE ADVERSE WIND CONDITIONS ASSOCIATED WITH A THUNDERSTORM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88FA144
- Event ID
- 20001213X25892
- Case number
- CHI88FA144
- 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: d9cd8a52a0093081945bbf8b4da0a03b875cdf438169789dec1b1dc70a784f03; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:40:24.224Z.