ATL03LA048 · Cessna 150F
Cessna 150F · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Richard B Russell Airport (RMG) to Richard B Russell Airport (RMG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03LA048
- 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 150F
- 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
- N8115F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richard B Russell Airport (RMG), RomeTo Richard B Russell Airport (RMG)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation
- Throttle/power lever, linkage › Not secured
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the certified flight instructor (CFI), the student pilot was practicing emergency procedures and had been instructed to configure the airplane for slow flight. The CFI instructed the student increase engine power, but the engine only developed about 1900 rpm. The CFI took control of the airplane and applied carburetor heat. The engine rpm decreased to 1000 rpm, and the carburetor heat was turned off. Unable to maintain altitude, the CFI selected the fairway on a nearby golf course and established an approach for a forced landing. According to the CFI, as he maneuvered for the approach, the airplane collided with a light pole and spun horizontally into trees during the forced landing attempt. Examination of the airplane revealed that the right wing assembly was separated from the airframe. The examination of the engine compartment revealed that the throttle cable was completely disconnected from the carburetor throttle arm. The throttle arm was found in the idle position. The connecting hardware was not located or recovered from the accident site. A review of the aircraft records revealed that the carburetor was installed about 9 hours before the accident.
Probable cause
The maintenance personnel failure to secure the throttle linkage during the installation of the carburetor that resulted in the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03LA048
- Event ID
- 20030224X00253
- Case number
- ATL03LA048
- 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: 51a40fb41b99965b1a0ae58413dd8689772a3dd9d9d128858f77d8fa4a385536; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:35:00.763Z.