CEN15CA236 · Cessna 150C C
Cessna 150C C · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From OOC · Durango, CO to OOC · Durango, CO
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15CA236
- 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 150C C
- 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
- N1924Z
- Operator
- Barnes Daudi M
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From OOC · Durango, COTo OOC · Durango, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1962)
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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 (total)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was on a local flight in mountainous terrain. While returning to the airport he began a descent by reducing power to about 60 percent, which resulted in a complete loss of engine power. The pilot applied full carburetor heat and full throttle and the engine regained power. He continued a shallow descent with full throttle and carburetor heat for about another 5 minutes. He closed the carburetor heat and continued the descent at 75 percent engine power. Within less than a minute, the engine lost complete power again. The pilot applied carburetor heat and full throttle, along with mixture adjustments and pumping the throttle, but the engine did not restart. He attempted a forced landing to a local highway. During the final approach, he avoided power lines by flying under them, but he was unable to flare the airplane before touchdown. The nose strut assembly sheared off during the landing and the right wing struck an embankment which resulted in substantial damage. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to serious carburetor icing during a descent.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15CA236
- Event ID
- 20150519X12927
- Case number
- CEN15CA236
- 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: e8737743c51c6a2160e8c8ae3e4e449faad2aeeb67085c7f8f1141a2ed1ebe73; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:19:51.835Z.