ATL06CA120 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Triangle North Executive Airport (KLHZ) to Triangle North Executive Airport (KLHZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06CA120
- 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 150L
- 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
- N6882G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Triangle North Executive Airport (KLHZ), Louisburg, NCTo Triangle North Executive Airport (KLHZ)
- 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
- 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 contamination
- 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 preflight, improper
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 stated that the airplane was topped off with 100 low lead fuel before departing. The fuel sumps were drained before and after the airplane was refueled. The pilot stated that he departed, climbed to 1,400 feet and leveled the airplane off in cruise flight. After about 10 minutes the engine started to sputter, the engine lost power, and the propeller stopped. The pilot attempted an engine restart, which was unsuccessful. The pilot made a forced landing to a sunflower field and the airplane nosed over during the landing roll in the soft dirt. Examination of the airplane after the accident revealed the left wing and engine firewall received structural damage. Examination of the airplane at the crash site by the FAA revealed continuity of the gear train. A field inspection of the fuel system revealed approximately four to six ounces of water when the fuel line was disconnected at the carburetor and the firewall fuel strainer was drained into a clear container. Water was also observed in the primer system.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper preflight inspection resulting in a total loss of engine power due to water ingestion, a forced landing to none suitable soft ground, and a nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06CA120
- Event ID
- 20060928X01411
- Case number
- ATL06CA120
- 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: cc9178a114f2500183bc3954f6bcc4cb43f4d6049b79249e0cc80c222f5f3f7f; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:35:13.344Z.