CEN15CA095 · Cessna 152
Capps Aviation Services Cessna 152 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Mount Pleasant Regional Airport (OSA) to Mount Pleasant Regional Airport (OSA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15CA095
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N787PB
- Operator
- Capps Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Pleasant Regional Airport (OSA), Mount Pleasant, TXTo Mount Pleasant Regional Airport (OSA), Mount Pleasant, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1977)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed the airport for a local flight. During the flight he observed family and friends on the ground and he maneuvered the airplane to overfly them at low altitude. The airplane struck power lines as the pilot set up for the flyover, and both ailerons and outboard portions of each wing separated. The pilot maintained control of the airplane until approaching the airport for landing. When the pilot reduced power to land, the airplane rolled to one side and impacted the ground near the runway. The pilot stated he did not see the wires due to the location of the sun.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to maneuver the airplane at low altitude resulting in the airplane impacting power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15CA095
- Event ID
- 20150106X05843
- Case number
- CEN15CA095
- 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: 7cc1a88a50294581e050309f4ea4c2f1e3d9ed71c20be8d98e16dc139c50cbc5; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:00:48.818Z.