WPR09LA117 · Cessna 152
KS Aviation Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Turlock Municipal Airport (O15) to Turlock Municipal Airport (O15)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA117
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N48761
- Operator
- KS Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Turlock Municipal Airport (O15), Turlock, CATo Turlock Municipal Airport (O15), Turlock, CA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and student were performing a series of touch-and-go pattern operations. The instructor reported that the engine lost power during the initial climb. He took control of the airplane from the student and verified that the mixture was fully enriched and the fuel shut off valve was in the "on" position. These actions had no effect, so he executed a forced landing in a nearby field. During the landing roll, the nosewheel sunk into the soft ground and the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. A postaccident examination of the engine by a licensed airframe and powerplant mechanic revealed that the bottom spark plugs of the number one and four cylinders exhibited evidence of water. Water was observed within the fuel sump; however, no water contamination was found in the fuel drained from the airplane's tanks. The engine was successfully run at various speeds with no anomalies noted. Review of the carburetor ice probability chart revealed that the temperature and dew point near the time of the accident were conducive to serious icing at any power setting. The instructor did not report applying carburetor heat following the engine failure.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to carburetor icing resulting from the pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat. Contributing to the accident was the instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA117
- Event ID
- 20090219X41151
- Case number
- WPR09LA117
- 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: 9d454b8c40e78b84b53b33bdf378f76476e9f641724767c6b79b0bb66be8e043; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:45:39.242Z.