WPR11FA046 · Cessna 150J
Kelly's Aviation Cessna 150J · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
From Ryan Field (RYN) to Ryan Field (RYN)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11FA046
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N60858
- Operator
- Kelly's Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZTo Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZ
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Physical
- 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, who was located adjacent to the accident site, reported that the commercial glider pilot was conducting his first solo takeoffs and landings as part of his training to obtain an airplane single-engine add-on rating. The instructor stated that the pilot conducted two uneventful takeoffs and landings and, during the third takeoff and approach to landing, everything looked normal. As the airplane was on short final approach for the runway, the flight instructor observed the airplane pitch downward and descend into terrain near the approach end of the runway. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Review of the pilot’s medical records revealed that he had longstanding, significant, untreated hypercholesterolemia. An autopsy on the pilot revealed that he had both “severe” coronary atherosclerotic disease and septal hypertrophy; both conditions put him at substantial risk for acute myocardial infarction or sudden cardiac arrhythmia. Neither event would be detectable by autopsy; however, it is likely that the pilot experienced a medical emergency and was incapacitated during the accident flight, rendering him unable to maintain airplane control.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain airplane control while on final approach due to undiagnosed cardiac disease, which caused a medical emergency and subsequent pilot incapacitation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11FA046
- Event ID
- 20101114X85519
- Case number
- WPR11FA046
- 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: 43bc996db402e3fb14e007e31ab8ce81f6e257486f41b318a606341db7eb2f45; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:07:52.336Z.