ATL89LA003 · Cessna 150M
Memphis Navy Flying Club Cessna 150M · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Millington-Memphis Airport (NQA) to CVL · Centerville, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA003
- 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
- N6176K
- Operator
- Memphis Navy Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Millington-Memphis Airport (NQA), Millington, TNTo CVL · Centerville, TN
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Silerton, TN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PLT WAS ON A VFR X-COUNTRY FLT. SHE RPRTD THAT AFTER LEVELING AT 2000', THE ENG BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH & THE RPM DROPPED FROM 2400 TO ABOUT 2000 RPM. THE ACFT WOULD NOT MAINT ALT. THE STUDENT SAID SHE APPLIED CARB HEAT WHEN THE ACFT WAS AT ABOUT 1300' & THE RPM WAS ABT 1700. SHE ELECTED TO LAND WHILE THE ENG STILL HAD PWR. HOWEVER, WHILE LANDING IN A PLOWED FIELD, THE ACFT NOSED OVER AS IT SLOWED DOWN. WHEN THE ACFT WAS EXAMINED AFTER THE ACDNT, NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THE TEMP & DEW POINT WERE 74 & 55 DEG, RESPECTIVELY. ACCORDING TO ICING PROBABILITY CHARTS, CONDS WERE CONDUCIVE TO CARB ICE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA003
- Event ID
- 20001213X26979
- Case number
- ATL89LA003
- 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: 937f96efe165cafe48eb76de4073460257ce3e91e23f1c329633979385eac947; retrieved 2026-09-23T08:42:18.700Z.