CHI02LA138 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA138
- 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 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
- N8657J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), CHICAGO/PROSPEC, ILTo Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW), Kenosha, WI
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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
- Dual student › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was damaged during a forced landing to a plowed field following a loss of engine power while approaching to land. The airplane was being flown by a certified flight instructor (CFI) and a student pilot. The CFI stated that prior to the flight the student pilot performed a sump check of the fuel tanks and found water in the fuel samples. She said that she instructed the student to sump the fuel tanks three to five times, after which they were able to get clear fuel samples. The CFI stated that she and her student checked the weather and decided to practice landings at ENW. The CFI said that they were set up for a straight-in approach to runway 6R at ENW when the engine lost power. She said that she assumed control of the airplane and performed a, "...flow check: (Fuel selector - Both, Mixture - Rich, Carb heat - ON, Throttle - Set, [Magnetos] - Both, Engine gauges - Green.)" The CFI reported that she determined that she would not be able to make the runway and she elected to land in a field. During the forced landing, the nose landing gear of the airplane collapsed. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed traces of water in the fuel tanks, fuel hoses, and the carburetor. No other anomalies were found that could be determined to have existed prior to the accident. The temperature and dewpoint at the time of the accident were reported as 8 degrees Celsius and 3 degrees Celsius respectively. According to a carburetor icing chart, the temperature and dewpoint are within the range of serious icing potential for any power setting. Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular 20-113 states the following regarding the use of carburetor heat: "[Carburetor] Heat should be applied for a short time to warm the induction system before beginning a prolonged descent with the engine throttled and left on during the descent. Power lever advancement should be performed periodically during descent to assure that power recovery can be achieved. The pilot should be prepared to turn heat off after power is regained to resume level flight or initiate a go-around from an abandoned approach."
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to use carburetor heat, and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA138
- Event ID
- 20020521X00718
- Case number
- CHI02LA138
- 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: ccf0076adfb92090dc1bb05e158fa405faeb776fcf765463981bb6615b4207b7; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:43:51.911Z.