CHI85LA041 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Little Falls-Morrison County-Lindbergh field (LXL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85LA041
- 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
- N45574
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Little Falls-Morrison County-Lindbergh field (LXL), Little Falls, MN
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Object › Tree(s)
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, excessive
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, not performed
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT TOOK OFF UPHILL ON A GRASS RWY THAT WAS DEW COVERED. THE FIELD WAS APRX 1600 FT LONG BORDERED BY 50-75 FT TREES.THE PLT STATED THAT DURING TAKEOFF ROLL THE ACFT LIGHTS WERE FLICKERING. HE SAID THAT THE ACFT WAS AIRBORNE APRX 300 FT BEFORE REACHING THE TREE LINE. ACCORDING TO HIS STATEMENT THE ACFT ENG LOST POWER IN THE CLIMB WHEN THE ACFT WAS ABOUT 20 FT FROM THE TREE LINE. THE ACFT CONTACTED AND REMAINED IN THE TREES. ON THE DAY FOLLOWING, THE ACFT WAS REMOVED FROM THE TREES; THE ENG WAS STARTED & RAN NORMALLY. THE PLT USED 20 DEGREES OF FLAPS FOR TAKEOFF. THE ACFT OPERATING HANDBOOKCALLED FOR 10 DEGREES OF FLAPS AND A TAKEOFF DISTANCE OF 1570 FT TO CLEAR A 50 FT OBSTACLE ON A DRY GRASS RWY. THE UNKNOWNS INTRODUCED BY WET GRASS, UPHILL RWY & IMPROPER FLAP SETTING CANNOT BE CALCULATED ACCURATELY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85LA041
- Event ID
- 20001214X41531
- Case number
- CHI85LA041
- 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 1984-11-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c5e45378c9b5773d1445379169fc0e88c1f73df477ca27fd91246772bac8a4cd; retrieved 2026-09-23T18:52:01.587Z.