SEA89FA176 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89FA176
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N704TF
- Operator
- Leidecker, Clint W. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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 › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Inadequate recurrent training
- Pilot in command › Lack of recent experience in type of aircraft
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TO HAVE BEEN FLYING IN THE AREA APPRX ONE HOUR PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT AND MAKING TOUCH & GO LANDINGS AT THE AIRPORT. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN MOMENTARILY, THEN LIFTED OFF IN A STEEP ANGLE OF CLIMB. THE LEFT WING DIPPED DOWN AND THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE TERRAIN. THE LAST DUAL INSTRUCTION THE PILOT LOGGED WAS ON 1-2-88.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER HANDLING OF THE AIRCRAFT DUE TO THE LACK OF RECURRENT TRAINING AND RECENT EXPERIENCE WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRSPEED AND A RESULTANT STALL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S OVER-CONFIDENCE IN HIS ABILITY TO ATTEMPT FLIGHT WITHOUT FURTHER DUAL INSTRUCTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89FA176
- Event ID
- 20001213X29486
- Case number
- SEA89FA176
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6bb8cfe4c4b110750fa4193d8cfd4673fd23622d6aeaf514366fcb1c6eb05040; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:08:46.190Z.