ERA16LA027 · Cessna 150M
Ameri Air Support Cessna 150M · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF) to Miami Executive Airport (TMB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA027
- 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
- N171RD
- Operator
- Ameri Air Support
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Opa-Locka, FLTo Miami Executive Airport (TMB), Miami, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 39 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a personal flight. The pilot reported that, several minutes after takeoff and while en route to his destination airport, the engine began to run roughly and lose power. He subsequently attempted to restore power without success. He then maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing on the fairway of a golf course. The airplane touched down on wet grass, and the pilot was unable to stop the airplane before it collided with two palm trees, which separated the outboard sections of both wings.
Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the intake valve of the No. 1 cylinder had failed due to fatigue, which would have resulted in the partial loss of engine power and engine roughness reported by the pilot. The origin and the extent of the fatigue region could not be determined due to postfracture damage. Further examination of the tip of the valve revealed an abnormal contact wear pattern likely caused by either misalignment relative to the valve seat, valve guide wear, or sticking between the valve stem and the valve guide. A review of maintenance records revealed that new cylinders had been installed when the engine was overhauled about 904 total flight hours before the accident.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the No. 1 cylinder intake valve, which resulted in the partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA027
- Event ID
- 20151026X65932
- Case number
- ERA16LA027
- 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: df684a44556138149c1a076a6651c6643f57101820a09e67e7b317c3ce1c94aa; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:55:27.233Z.