IAD05LA026 · Cessna 150C
Cessna 150C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Spadaro Airport (1N2) to Spadaro Airport (1N2)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05LA026
- 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 150C
- 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
- N7857Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spadaro Airport (1N2), East Moriches, NYTo Spadaro Airport (1N2), East Moriches, NY
- 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 · climb to 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Worn
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Compression
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On departure from the Spadaro Airport (1N2), East Moriches, New York, the airplane's engine experienced a partial loss of power. The pilot attempted to restore full power by using the carburetor heat control, without result. He then performed a forced landing on a road. The airplane bounced, and touched down in a field. During the rollout the airplane struck an obstruction nosed over and was substantially damaged. Examination of the wreckage, revealed that the fuel tanks appeared to be almost full. Fuel was drained from the airplane and no contamination was observed. An examination of the engine was also conducted. Crankshaft and camshaft continuity was confirmed. The magnetos produced spark at all spark plugs. During A differential pressure test, air could be heard to discharge at the oil filler/crankcase breather and cylinders #1 and #3, exhibited readings below the leakage limits. During an internal inspection of the #1 and #3 cylinders, heavy carbon deposits were found on both the cylinder heads and valves. Wear was also visually observed on the cylinder walls and both rod end bearings exhibited excessive play. The airplane had received an annual inspection 55 flight hours prior to the accident and the engine was 164 flight hours short of the recommended overhaul time.
Probable cause
Several mechanical deficiencies which either independently or collectively resulted in a subsequent loss of engine power. A factor in the accident was the obstruction in the forced landing area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05LA026
- Event ID
- 20041229X02040
- Case number
- IAD05LA026
- 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: 491271192f1c2aea980ccaceef715b968f64df465a98582b8fd18e6ba52f853b; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:05:42.275Z.