LAX08LA108 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during takeoff
From Columbia Airport (O22) to O22
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08LA108
- 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
- N1364Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbia Airport (O22), Columbia, CATo O22
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that the student pilot had recently purchased the airplane and that they intended to test fly it within the traffic pattern. Prior to departure, he noted that the wind was about 10-15 knots and favored a 2,600-foot-long turf runway. The instructor stated that he initiated a short field takeoff by holding the brakes, using 10 degrees of flaps, and applying full throttle. He recalled that the engine only produced 2,050 rpm, and that he expected the rpm to increase as he released the brakes. During the takeoff roll, the instructor felt that the tall grass slowed the acceleration of the airplane before it lifted off the ground at 55 miles per hour. He lowered the nose to gain airspeed in ground effect, but the airplane was not accelerating. Due to upward sloping terrain with trees and power lines in the flight path of the airplane, he turned left to avoid the obstacles. During the turn, the angle of bank increased due to a wind gust and the airplane stalled, entered a spin to the left, and impacted the ground in a nose low attitude. Examination of the airframe revealed no anomalies. Examination of the engine revealed that the number two cylinder top and bottom spark plugs were fouled with carbon deposits. These spark plugs would not have fired, resulting in a loss of power from the number two cylinder. The aircraft owner's manual states that during the initial takeoff phase the pilot should verify full throttle operation and that the engine should run smoothly and turn approximately 2,500 to 2,600 rpm with carburetor heat off.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's decision to attempt takeoff with an engine discrepancy and subsequent failure to abort takeoff when the airplane did not attain adequate airspeed during the initial climb, resulting in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08LA108
- Event ID
- 20080422X00529
- Case number
- LAX08LA108
- 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: 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: 80a48a59a8b042060240a464fef941ce76360b0fec363ea27fa16c06a61f1494; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:33:59.858Z.