ATL82DA175 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport (EQY) to Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport (BCB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82DA175
- 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
- N704LX
- Operator
- Virginia Polytechnic Instutute
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport (EQY), Monroe, NCTo Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport (BCB), Blacksburg, 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER FLYING FROM BLACKSBURG, VA TO MONROE, NC. THE PILOT TOOK OFF ON A RETURN FLIGHT TO BLACKSBURG WITHOUT REFUELING. THE PILOT STATED THAT BEFORE TAKEOFF, HE TOOK THE FUEL TANK CAPS OFF TO VISUALLY CHECK THE FUEL. HOWEVER, HE DID NOT USE THE DIP STICK THAT WAS PROVIDED BY THE OPERATOR TO DETERMINE THE FUEL REMAINING. HE ESTIMATED THAT WELL OVER HALF OF THE TOTAL USABLE SUPPLY WAS REMAINING, ENOUGH FOR THE TRIP PLUS A RESERVE. WHILE EN ROUTE, HE DEVIATED LEFT AND RIGHT OF COURSE AND CLIMBED AND DESCENDED TO AVOID WEATHER. ALSO, HE USED A RICH MIXTURE FOR PART OF THE FLIGHT. THE FUEL GAUGES BEGAN INDICATING LOW, BUT HE THOUGHT THEY WERE INACCURATE. DURING A DESCENT NEAR HIS DESTINATION, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. WHILE LANDING ON A HIGHWAY, HE S-TURNED ON FINAL APPROACH TO STAY BEHIND VEHICLES. THE PLANE TOUCHED DOWN AT AN ANGLE TO THE HIGHWAY, STRADDLED A GUARD RAIL, AND HIT A TREE. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE AIRCRAFT. THE PILOT THOUGHT HE COULD FLY 4 HRS WITHOUT REFUELING, BUT ONLY FLEW 3.3 TO 3.5 HRS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82DA175
- Event ID
- 20020917X02760
- Case number
- ATL82DA175
- 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: 1f389ef33d543f1019739281d4095ba60f92cb844e5b41d545ee26c72e811082; retrieved 2026-09-24T02:52:05.828Z.