CHI05LA012 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Bemidji Regional Airport (BJI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA012
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N63439
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bemidji Regional Airport (BJI), Bemidji, MNTo 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
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
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 was destroyed on impact with terrain and a post impact fire occurred. Night marginal visual meteorological conditions to instrument meteorological conditions prevailed in the area at the time of the accident. A lineman at the departure airport stated, "The pilot said he was looking forward to a pheasant hunt in North Dakota. ... He asked to have his plane, N63439, topped off with 100LL. He also purchased 2 quarts of 15/50 oil and a Twin Cities sectional. While waiting for the fuel the pilot sat at the DTN weather computer. When the pilot came back to the counter he expressed concern with the weather, 'It's a little down between here and there.'" The sheriff was a first responder and observed a small fire burning in the wreckage. The sheriff's report stated, "When I approached the area of the wreckage I observed several pieces of metal that were twisted and broken. There was a burn area of approximately 60-80 feet in diameter. Scattered all throughout the crash site were 12 gauge shot shells. I observed a small section of tail that confirmed that this was, in fact an airplane that appeared to have been blue and white in color. The main section of wreckage was on the east edge of the debris field. The wreckage was such that it was impossible to find an identification number or "N" number." Photographs reveal that the fuselage was consumed by fire. Both wing's leading edges were crushed rearward. The engine and propeller were impacted in terrain. The airplane's data plate was found. The pilot was not instrument rated.
Probable cause
The non-instrument rated pilot's continued flight into known adverse weather conditions and his not maintaining aircraft control during cruise flight. Factors present were the night condition and low ceilings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA012
- Event ID
- 20041101X01732
- Case number
- CHI05LA012
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-10-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3f95ed1ff0b1e20987c29281250a2406e29262d2f17ed6e4f79a19a578b36814; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:17:31.546Z.