CEN09IA172 · Cessna 150 L
Cessna 150 L · Incident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to Chicago Executive Airport (PWK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09IA172
- 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
- Incident
- 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 150 L
- 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
- N747KA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, IL
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot rented the airplane for a local flight with the passenger. While maneuvering, the airplane experienced a partial loss of engine power and the pilot could not maintain altitude. The pilot elected to perform a precautionary landing to a frozen lake and landed uneventfully. Examination of the engine revealed that the Number 1 cylinder intake valve had fractured. The cause of the failure could not be determined. The operator exceeded the engine manufacturer's recommended time between overhaul by over 1,600 hours. However, because the operator operated under Part 91, they were not subject to the Federal regulations that require compliance with manufacturers' recommended maintenance instructions.
Probable cause
The failure of the number 1 cylinder intake valve which resulted in a partial loss of engine power. Contributing to the incident was the failure of the operator to maintain the engine per manufacturer's recommendations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09IA172
- Event ID
- 20090223X50804
- Case number
- CEN09IA172
- 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, damage. 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: 6df675b8324511683c5d712e4510b4032bf3bdb6b30edb588f0d8cdf946d2baf; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:46:33.490Z.