LAX08FA115 · Cessna 150J
Seaplane Ventures Cessna 150J · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From PRIV · San Andreas, CA to PRIV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08FA115
- 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
- 2 · 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 150J
- 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
- N60760
- Operator
- Seaplane Ventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PRIV · San Andreas, CATo PRIV
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 › 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
A flight instructor and a commercial pilot receiving instruction departed from a pond (at an elevation of approximately 1,100 feet) in the float-equipped airplane. A camera recovered from the wreckage disclosed images indicating that the flight went to a mountain lake where a touch-and-go landing was made. The images indicated that the airplane accomplished this landing with an estimated 10-knot, gusting to 20-knot, headwind. After liftoff from the water, the airplane reversed course toward rising mountainous terrain. The wreckage was located at 5,200-feet, and the terrain in the immediate area of the accident site was level. The airplane came to rest on its nose, with the wreckage evididence indicating a stall/loss of control and vertical descent to the ground. The empennage remained nearly vertical to the terrain and bent down slightly. Both floats were also vertical to the terrain. Postaccident inspection of the airplane found no evidence of any preimpact mechanical discrepancies with the airframe or engine that would have prevented normal operation. The density altitude at the time was estimated as 6,907 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering, resulting in an aerodynamic stall and loss of aircraft control. Contributing to the accident were rising mountainous terrain and a high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08FA115
- Event ID
- 20080425X00550
- Case number
- LAX08FA115
- 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: a03bf60d0b7004af72d51172aeb2858f375c29af58ec7fcbf1bb4f6518ebfbfb; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:02:53.920Z.