MIA01LA073 · Cessna A150K
Cessna A150K · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Mercedita International Airport (PSE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01LA073
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 A150K
- 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
- N5915J
- Operator
- Oscar E. Hau · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mercedita International Airport (PSE), Ponce, PRTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he and the passenger planned to take pictures of some property. They arrived over the area at 1,500 feet and then descended to 1,000 feet. When the property was located, he reduced engine power to a minimum and descended to 600 feet. When level at 600 feet, the airplane would not maintain altitude. He applied full engine power and the engine did not obtain power and the airplane continued to descend. The airplane touched down in a clear area and collided with a fence at which time it nosed over. Post crash examination of the airplane and engine by an FAA inspector showed no evidence of precrash failure or malfunction. The pilot stated he did not use carburetor heat for the descent. A carburetor icing probability chart showed the airplane was operating in conditions conducive to serious carburetor icing at glide power.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to use carburetor heat during descent resulting in loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the airplane colliding with a fence and nosing over during a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01LA073
- Event ID
- 20010214X00446
- Case number
- MIA01LA073
- 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, coordinates. 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: 983c018749f5fe5da1149d74b645e8624e16604b847a211b65ef61c4c97fcf15; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:10:51.973Z.