ERA15CA101 · Cessna 150L M
Aptis Aviation Cessna 150L M · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Minute Man Air Field (6B6) to Minute Man Air Field (6B6)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA101
- 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 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
- N5443Q
- Operator
- Aptis Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minute Man Air Field (6B6), Stow, MATo Minute Man Air Field (6B6), Stow, MA
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1972)
- 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 go-around
- 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 control in flight
- 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 › Action/decision
- 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
The flight instructor (CFI) stated that the student pilot flared the airplane too high while on approach for landing, and he instructed her to conduct a go-around. The student responded by applying engine power, but did not lower the airplane's nose. The CFI assumed control of the airplane "too late," and the airplane subsequently stalled and impacted an unoccupied airplane parked near the runway, resulting in substantial damage. The CFI reported there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies of the airplane or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's delayed remedial action in response to the student pilot's improper go-around, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack, experiencing an aerodynamic stall, and impacting a parked airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA101
- Event ID
- 20150115X71911
- Case number
- ERA15CA101
- 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: 34a19516e8ee133051cc7f1c356a1355056064d63c4c77ca87f9254f358d613f; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:01:42.917Z.