CHI04CA140 · Cessna 150H
Cessna 150H · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Mount Pleasant, MI to Mount Pleasant Municipal Airport (MOP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA140
- 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 150H
- 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
- N3915V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Pleasant, MITo Mount Pleasant Municipal Airport (MOP), Mount Pleasant, MI
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted terrain during an attempted takeoff from an alfalfa field. The airplane was situated in the field because of a forced landing due to fuel exhaustion experienced the previous day. An inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration told the pilot that a takeoff from the field was not advised and a local mechanic informed the pilot that the airplane could be easily towed to a nearby airport. The pilot stated that, "after much deliberation and speaking with other pilots they suggested a takeoff from the field." The pilot reported he walked the length of the field and then decided to perform a "high-speed taxi" to evaluate the area. The pilot stated he selected "minimal flaps to relieve pressure from the nose wheel." The pilot reported that the airplane contacted some bumps in the field and the airplane veered to the right. The pilot stated he "pulled back a bit on the controls and the plane went up a little and [touched] the left wing and flipped over." The pilot reported that the only reason he attempted to "move the plane" was because there were thunderstorms approaching the area. The airplane had become airborne and traveled north approximately 210 feet before the nose gear impacted the terrain. The local winds at the time of the accident were from the south-southeast at six knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to takeoff downwind from the rough field and his failure to maintain aircraft control. A factor to the accident was the rough/uneven alfalfa field and the tailwind experienced during the takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA140
- Event ID
- 20040630X00891
- Case number
- CHI04CA140
- 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: 25f854b1ac1efd8f6213de76418d0ea2454f14e96c7d72429e9eaf02601fc377; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:19:21.980Z.