CEN16FA216 · Cessna 150F
Cessna 150F · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb
From Butler Field (IN46) to Eagle Creek Airpark (EYE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA216
- 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
- 2 · 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 150F
- 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
- N102DK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Butler Field (IN46), Rockville, INTo Eagle Creek Airpark (EYE), Indianapolis, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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 private pilot and passenger were departing on a personal, cross-country flight from a grass runway. A witness saw the airplane lift off from the 2,081-ft-long- runway near midfield with a high pitch attitude, but he did not see the subsequent climbout or accident. The airplane impacted tall trees about 1,100 ft past the departure end of the runway.
Given the witness's statement, the pilot likely did not lower the airplane's nose to accelerate while in ground effect, as recommended by the Federal Aviation Administration for a soft-field takeoff. Instead, the pilot likely attempted to climb the airplane at too high of a pitch angle and too low of an airspeed during the soft-field takeoff. Further, the airplane was near or above its maximum gross takeoff weight. The combination of these factors led to the airplane climbing out at an insufficient airspeed and its subsequent inability to adequately climb out of ground effect and clear the trees off the departure end of the runway. In addition, a light tailwind likely existed during the climb, which the pilot may not have noticed due to trees surrounding the runway and windsock.
Probable cause
The pilot's use of an improper soft-field takeoff procedure, which resulted in the airplane having insufficient airspeed to climb out of ground effect and its subsequent impact with trees near the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA216
- Event ID
- 20160613X11613
- Case number
- CEN16FA216
- 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: 510cfe6cc70c873e737262a47c8db9496b65bcc76aeeb98f220c41258618fc04; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:50:31.946Z.