CEN15LA451 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L · Accident: fuel related during initial climb
From Small Field (IN81) to Small Field (IN81)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA451
- 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
- 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
- N17292
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Small Field (IN81), Carthage, INTo Small Field (IN81), Carthage, IN
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was conducting a personal local flight in the airplane. The pilot reported that the engine lost power during initial climb after takeoff. His attempts to restore power by adjusting the fuel mixture and throttle were unsuccessful. The pilot reported that he applied carburetor heat and that the engine began running more roughly but that he left the carburetor heat activated. He subsequently conducted and off-airport landing in a corn field, and the airplane nosed over.
The engine was not examined because, after the accident, the owner removed the airplane from the accident site and sold the engine. However, a mechanic who was subsequently hired to overhaul the engine reported that it had been improperly assembled with noncertificated parts. Although the engine had been improperly assembled, there was no evidence that the improper assembly resulted in the reported loss of engine power; however, the extent of the improper assembly indicated that an engine failure was imminent.
The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to moderate carburetor icing at cruise power and serious icing at descent power. Federal Aviation Administration guidance indicates that the application of carburetor heat may result in engine roughness while the ice melts, which is consistent with the pilot's report. Based on the available information, the engine likely lost power due to carburetor icing.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA451
- Event ID
- 20160128X50658
- Case number
- CEN15LA451
- 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: 355869463a77f5e2bdc301a28144a0ba7482d9899e5850efbcc8dc70f2baa9d8; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:07:24.155Z.