ATL85LA040 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF) to W07 · Fredericksburg, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL85LA040
- 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 150H
- 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
- N22741
- Operator
- Donald A.Massey
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF), Pittsfield, MATo W07 · Fredericksburg, VA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
VFR PLT WAS USING VOR AIRWAY NAVIGATION. HE ARRIVED IN THE VICINITY OF DESTINATION AFTER DARK AND ATTEMPTED TO LOCATE THE ARPT BY FLYING A RADIAL FROM THE VOR; HOWEVER, HE USED THE 230 DEGREE RADIAL (PUBLISHED RADIAL IS 237 DEGREES). FURTHER, THE ARPT IS UNLIGHTED UNLESS PRIOR ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE. PLT HAD NOT DONE SO. PLT FLEW BACK AND FORTH ALONG THE 230 RADIAL FOR 45 MINS BUT DID NOT SIGHT ARPT. DURING THIS TIME, PLT CALLED ARPT ON UNICOM FOR THE ACTIVE RUNWAY. UNKNOWN PLT RESPONDED WITH WIND DIRECTION, BUT NO ANSWER FROM ARPT. PLT DID NOT ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN ASSIST FROM ARTCC OR OTHER FACILITY. (THERE WERE 7 ARPTS WITHIN A 10 MI RADIUS OF THE VOR IN USE.) WHEN FUEL BECAME CRITICAL, PLT LOOKED FOR EMERG LNDG SITE BUT FUEL EXHAUSTION OCCURRED. PLT SET UP MIN DESCENT RATE AND ALLOWED ACFT TO SETTLE INTO TREES. ACFT LODGED IN TREES AND THE PLT SUSTAINED SERIOUS INJURIES UPON DEPLANING WHEN HE FELL 20 FT TO THE GROUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL85LA040
- Event ID
- 20001214X41514
- Case number
- ATL85LA040
- 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: 92d0b29a9aa51082e6f4726369661962bf7ddad03db16fb2d6a059af2825a150; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:24:05.475Z.