NYC02LA078 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From H30 · Hamilton, NY to H30
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC02LA078
- 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 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
- N3006V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From H30 · Hamilton, NYTo H30
- 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 · cruise
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, delayed
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 had been airborne for over 2 hours when he attempted to return to his departure airport. He reported that he set the course selector on the VOR receiver to 330 degrees, for the 26 NM return flight to his departure airport. However, the airplane appeared to track on a heading of 030 degrees. The pilot continued to track on that heading for about 70 nautical miles. By this time he realized he was lost, and noticed the airplane was low on fuel. He contacted the Buffalo Flight Service Station, (FSS), for assistance; however, they were unable to identify the airplane. The FSS asked the pilot to climb, to help in its identification. While climbing the engine began to lose power, and run rough. The FSS gave the pilot a list of procedures to check. The pilot had climbed to about 3,000 feet; however, with the loss in engine power, the airplane started to descend. Passing through about 1,500 feet, the engine shuddered and lost all power. The pilot was unable to restart the engine, and performed a forced landing into an area with scattered trees. The airplane struck a tree, and came to rest inverted. The FAA inspector reported there was no fuel in the fuel tanks, and the line between the fuel strainer bowl to the carburetor. There was no sign of a fuel leak on the airplane, and no sign of a fuel spill at the accident site. The pilot stated that he did not lean the mixture during the entire flight that lasted about 3 hours. The VOR receiver was found tuned to the 030 degree radial.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed decision to ask for help which led to a power loss due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC02LA078
- Event ID
- 20020408X00472
- Case number
- NYC02LA078
- 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: 3f2b8c97e99593df747db865780f1ff4b1cb62c3b523c33487e9d38866ee43f0; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:02:58.596Z.