ERA10LA184 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF) to Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA184
- 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
- N6589G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Lake Alfred, FLTo Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Lake Alfred, FL
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While turning from the base leg to the final leg of the traffic pattern, the airplane's engine lost partial power. The student pilot increased the throttle setting and the engine maintained that power setting for about 20 seconds before losing power completely. The certificated flight instructor assumed authority over the airplane's controls and performed a forced landing to a field near the airport. During the landing roll, the nosewheel encountered rough terrain and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest inverted. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector drained approximately four gallons of fuel from the left wing tank and gascolator at the accident site. A detailed examination of the engine by two FAA inspectors revealed no evidence of any preexisting anomalies or malfunctions. While a review of the carburetor icing probability chart showed that the aircraft was operating in conditions conducive to serious carburetor icing at glide power, the pilots reported using carburetor heat for the approach to land.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during the landing approach for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA184
- Event ID
- 20100322X31619
- Case number
- ERA10LA184
- 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. 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: 908de555f63e6a9f5eab8d74b720659cb4d53f9a0d8a92fde701bd5c35398a8e; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:46:28.073Z.