CEN14LA161 · Cessna 150M
Jeff Air Pilot Services Cessna 150M · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Indy South Greenwood Airport (HFY) to Indy South Greenwood Airport (HFY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA161
- 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 150M
- 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
- N9432U
- Operator
- Jeff Air Pilot Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indy South Greenwood Airport (HFY), Greenwood, INTo Indy South Greenwood Airport (HFY), Greenwood, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that the airplane sustained a partial loss of engine power after his student completed several training maneuvers at a reduced engine power setting. The subsequent application of full throttle did not increase the engine power, and the engine continued to operate with reduced power. The flight instructor then took control of the airplane and established best glide speed while he verified that the magnetos were operating properly, that the fuel selector was in the "on" position, and that the mixture and throttle were full forward. Applying carburetor heat did not noticeably affect engine operation. The instructor remembered maneuvering toward a nearby field for a forced landing; however, he did not recall the landing or impact with terrain. The student pilot stated that, shortly before flare/touchdown and when the airplane was about 25 to 30 feet above the ground, the engine power increased suddenly, which caused the airplane to pitch up and enter an aerodynamic stall. The airplane subsequently impacted terrain.
An examination of the engine did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or abnormalities that would have precluded normal engine operation. The atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the accumulation of carburetor ice at cruise and descent engine power settings. Additionally, an aviation mechanic confirmed the existence of carburetor icing conditions at the departure airport within 1 hour of the accident. The instructor confirmed that carburetor heat had not been used during any of the training maneuvers completed at reduced engine power settings. The failure to use carburetor heat while performing flight maneuvers at reduced engine power settings while in conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice likely resulted in the partial loss of engine power. The sudden increase of engine power shortly before landing was likely due to a reduction of accumulated carburetor ice following the flight instructor's application of carburetor heat and the increase in ambient temperature as the airplane descended during the forced landing.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to ensure that carburetor heat was used while performing maneuvers at reduced power settings in conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. Also causal was the flight instructor's failure to secure the engine before landing, which resulted in a sudden increase of engine power and an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA161
- Event ID
- 20140318X41646
- Case number
- CEN14LA161
- 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: fe1df3fcae83f5308b5ca52cf1a10fd4e4264545273d29de602d24399de00be3; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:24:15.812Z.