WPR14LA305 · Cessna 150M M
Cessna 150M M · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Russian Flat Airport (M42) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA305
- 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 150M M
- 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
- N66255
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Russian Flat Airport (M42), Russian Flat, MTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot attempted to take off from an uncontrolled grass runway with an uphill grade; the airplane subsequently impacted an open area of swamp land about 570 ft beyond the end of the runway. The airplane impacted in a right-wing, nose-low attitude; the impact damage was consistent with a near-vertical descent. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
The density altitude at the time of the accident was calculated to be over 8,200 ft. Review of airplane manufacturer's takeoff performance charts revealed that the conditions present at the time of the accident exceeded the airplane's takeoff performance limitations. It is likely that, as the pilot attempted to take off uphill in high density altitude conditions, he exceeded the airplane's critical angle of attack, and the airplane experienced an aerodynamic stall/spin at low altitude.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight performance planning and his operation of the airplane outside of the manufacturer's specified performance limitations, which resulted in his exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack and a subsequent aerodynamic stall/spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA305
- Event ID
- 20140721X24710
- Case number
- WPR14LA305
- 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: 736d5c3cf27d369d18139483aa37f953a481ff9b8e5f9327fadda0870d237039; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:22:16.468Z.