NYC04LA011 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Vine Grove Airport (70KY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA011
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N3807V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vine Grove Airport (70KY), Vine Grive, KYTo 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
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 and passenger departed on a local flight and when the airplane did not return to the departure airport, it was reported as missing. The airplane was located in a lake, submerged in 21 feet of water. A power line which extended about 870 feet, was approximately 80 to 85 feet above the lake in the vicinity of the accident site. A power interruption was reported on the power line about 1 hour after the airplane departed, and subsequent examination of the power line revealed it was damaged. A witness who lived near the accident site stated he observed an airplane about the time of the accident, "buzzing the lake and flying really low." Examination of the airplane did not reveal any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions of the airframe or engine. Vertical cuts with diagonal marks consistent with a wire strike, were observed on the leading edges of the left and right wings. Weather reported at an airport about 30 miles south-southwest of the accident site, about the time of the accident, included a visibility of 10 miles and clear skies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain obstacle clearance. Low altitude flight is a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA011
- Event ID
- 20031029X01823
- Case number
- NYC04LA011
- 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: f185f18a598953ae7d8279cf59c6dc851c50eace6a716ae3c62e29f5055e6fcb; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:53:12.430Z.