SEA05CA175 · Cessna 150J
Cessna 150J · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Roseburg Regional Airport (RBG)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05CA175
- 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 150J
- 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
- CF-YKO
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CATo Roseburg Regional Airport (RBG), Roseburg, OR
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
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 pilot, the airplane was about 7 nautical miles from the destination airport descending through 5,500 feet msl, when "the rpm dropped to 1000 rpm from 2500 rpm. After about 20-30 sec. the engine completely stopped." Several attempts to restart the engine were unsuccessful, and the pilot made a forced landing in an open field. The field was rough, and the nose wheel collapsed during the landing roll. Both the left and right wings contacted the ground, and the airplane came to rest nose down. The pilot noted that "fuel was leaking from the overflow valve." Local authorities responded to the scene and found the airplane positioned nose down with fuel dripping from one tank when they arrived. The airplane was moved back onto the main landing gear, and the fuel leakage stopped. The local authorities reported that the amount of fuel leakage was small, likely less than 1 gallon. An A&P mechanic, who recovered the airplane to the airport, reported that there was structural damage to the left wing and the firewall. Additionally, the mechanic drained approximately 1 cup of fuel from the left tank and 1 gallon of fuel from the right tank. Three days after the accident, the mechanic added 3 gallons of fuel to each tank, started the engine and performed a static run up. The engine started and ran with no discrepancies noted.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power as a result of fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning and failure to refuel the airplane. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05CA175
- Event ID
- 20050913X01448
- Case number
- SEA05CA175
- 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 2005-08-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 13e3d3dfad76c8befaa0e4471b1708f0c1bf5fa9ef3888303961104a5fdab564; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:28:00.786Z.