LAX07LA052 · Cessna 150G
Cessna 150G · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Murray Field (EKA) to Murray Field (EKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA052
- 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 150G
- 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
- N3394J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Murray Field (EKA), Eureka, CATo Murray Field (EKA)
- 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)
- 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
- Anti-ice/deice system, carburetor/heat › Inoperative
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, attempted
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- 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 departed on a personal local area flight and climbed to about 900 feet when the engine began to sputter and eventually lost power. He applied carburetor heat when the engine first began to sputter and lose power, but the engine continued to sputter and lose rpm's. The pilot attempted multiple times to restart the engine to no avail, and finally ditched the airplane in a shallow body of sea water, about 12 feet deep, next to a boat and oyster farm. Post accident examination of the airplane by an FAA airworthiness inspector revealed that both fuel tanks were 1/2 full with auto fuel. The left wing sustained substantial damage and was crushed from the leading edge aft to the spar. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were identified. The inspector further noted that a placard was found above the carburetor heat control knob that stated it was inoperative. A review of the weather data available for the area revealed a temperature and dew point that were conducive to serious icing at a cruise power setting.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the pilot's inadequate preflight planning and decision to operate the airplane in carburetor icing conditions with an inoperative carburetor heat system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA052
- Event ID
- 20061213X01780
- Case number
- LAX07LA052
- 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: f26ce4d3db947f6f9ed6946e080bf94e14baceb3888033f09f239a010bd2a76c; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:10:42.270Z.