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CHI08CA221 · Cessna 150G

25 Jul 2008 · Grand Rapids, MN, United States

Cessna 150G · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing

From Osage, MN to Grand Rapids Itasca Co-Gordon Newstrom field (GPZ)

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Event

NTSB case
CHI08CA221
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
N8668J
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Osage, MNTo Grand Rapids Itasca Co-Gordon Newstrom field (GPZ), Grand Rapids, MN
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
Landing
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
Loss of control on ground
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

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 during the landing approach to the runway 34, he was unable to obtain weather information from the airport's automated weather observing system (AWOS) because it was inoperative. The pilot then attempted a landing without checking "current conditions." During the landing, the airplane moved towards the right side of the runway and ground looped, which the pilot attributed to a left gusting crosswind. Post accident examination of the airplane revealed that the flaps were fully extended. The airplane sustained substantial damage, which included crushing of the left wing, bending of the horizontal stabilizer, and wrinkling of the fuselage forward of the empennage and below the aft cabin window. The pilot stated that he should have flown a low pass over the runway to check "current conditions." One of two windsocks at the airport was located about 1,000 feet down the runway. The airport's AWOS was operating at the time of the accident and recorded wind at 1735 from 290 degrees at 14 knots, gusting to 21 knots.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing. Contributing to the accident were the crosswind and wind gusts.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CHI08CA221
Event ID
20080903X01371
Case number
CHI08CA221
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: a4b8a960704e631733a9cd2775f7a7b9e8dc08dc4ff2a22e69e109c40ac69c3b; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:08:51.462Z.