SEA06LA037 · Cessna 152
Kelso Flight Services Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Southwest Washington Regional Airport (KLS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06LA037
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N444QA
- Operator
- Kelso Flight Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southwest Washington Regional Airport (KLS), Kelso, WATo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Weather condition › Carburetor icing conditions
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 reported that the purpose of the flight was to take the aircraft out on a maintenance check flight as the aircraft had not flown much in the preceding three months. After about 50 minutes, the pilot returned to the airport. The pilot stated that he had checked for carburetor ice several times during the flight. During the return flight to the airport in mist, the pilot applied carburetor heat and reduced power to descend from 2,000 feet to 1,100 feet. The pilot was setting up for a 45 degree entry to runway 12 when he closed the carburetor heat and applied power. The pilot stated that the engine did not respond and would not "make power." The pilot was unable to get power back to the engine, which eventually lost all power before he initiated a forced landing to an open sand pit. During the landing roll, the airplane nosed over. A post-crash inspection of the engine found that the engine was able to be started. Due to impact damage, the engine was run only for a short time before it was shut down. According to a carburetor icing probability chart, the weather conditions was conducive for serious carburetor icing at cruise power.
Probable cause
Encounter with carburetor icing conditions while maneuvering for the downwind which resulted in a loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. The aircraft nosing over during the landing roll in soft sand was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06LA037
- Event ID
- 20060110X00037
- Case number
- SEA06LA037
- 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: f3c51766176a24d8e477a4a86b1e3c1d83a3eed64afeb3e33f8c9c68f20ed890; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:10:14.915Z.