FTW87LA140 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From 62H · Giddings, TX to Easterwood Field (CLL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW87LA140
- 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 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
- N8612J
- Operator
- Charles T.Whelan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 62H · Giddings, TXTo Easterwood Field (CLL), College Station, TX
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Vibration
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Lack of total experience
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of College Station, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT UPON TOUCHDOWN THE AIRCRAFT BEGAN TO SHAKE SO VIOLENTLY THAT HE COULD NOT SEE THE PANEL OR CONTROL THE AIRCRAFT. DURING LANDING ROLL IT VEERED OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE NOSE AND RIGHT MAIN GEAR WHEELS DUG INTO THE SOFT GROUND AND THE AIRCRAFT ROLLED INTO AN INVERTED POSITION AND STOPPED. THE PILOT STATED THAT BEFORE STARTING OUT ON THIS FLIGHT (HIS FIRST SOLO CROSS COUNTRY) HE MADE FOUR TOUCH-AND-GO LANDINGS AND CONFERRED TWO DIFFERENT TIMES WITH THE OWNER-MECHANIC OF THE AIRCRAFT ABOUT A NOSE GEAR VIBRATION. IT WAS REPORTED THAT NEW BUSHINGS HAD BEEN INSTALLED IN THE NOSE GEAR ASSEMBLY ABOUT 50 OPERATIONAL HOURS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. THE REASON FOR THE SHIMMY/VIBRATION OF THE NOSE GEAR ASSEMBLY WAS NOT DETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW87LA140
- Event ID
- 20001213X31199
- Case number
- FTW87LA140
- 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: ad65e547c414a7951345a6217f37b8a33164c3575000b19d9bb328cb7d417a32; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:51:16.123Z.