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NYC08CA079 · Cessna 150G

9 Jan 2008 · Sarasota, FL, United States

Cessna 150G · Accident: fuel exhaustion while maneuvering

From Indiantown Airport (X58) to Hidden River Airport (22FA)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC08CA079
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
N2490J
Operator
Bill Burton
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Indiantown Airport (X58), Indiantown, FLTo Hidden River Airport (22FA), Sarasota, FL
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
Maneuvering
Defining eventThe 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
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

  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

During a cross country flight the pilot of a Cessna 150G executed a forced landing after a complete loss of engine power. During the landing the airplane nosed over substantially damaging the firewall and vertical stabilizer. According to the pilot, after leaving his departure airport, he stopped at two other airports prior to proceeding to his final destination. Once he arrived at his destination airport, he was unable to turn on the runway lights and began to orbit the airport. Approximately 10 minutes later, the engine began to "roll back" and lost all power. The pilot estimated that he had operated the airplane for 3.2 hours prior to the loss of power and that all of the flights had been operated at 3,000 feet. He stated that the fuel burn had been 4.2 gallons an hour in accordance with the pilot's operating handbook (POH). A review of the Cessna 150G POH revealed that 3.24 gallons was required for the three, engine start, taxi, and takeoff sequences. A review of the airplane's engine hour meter and maintenance records revealed that the airplane had been operated for 4.6 hours. Fuel burn calculations derived from information in the POH, the pilot's stated fuel burn, and hour meter information revealed that a total of 22.52 gallons of gasoline would have been consumed. According to the POH, total usable fuel was 22.5 gallons. A postaccident examination by an airframe and powerplant mechanic revealed no evidence of fuel in either the fuel lines or fuel tanks.

Probable cause

The pilot's improper preflight and in-flight planning which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC08CA079
Event ID
20080219X00203
Case number
NYC08CA079
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2008-01-10.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 3fc398fca6fc7d01620904cb35ca5d175b0991d7ae4dca4e8b36e9bc880b2613; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:22:27.878Z.