CEN16LA236 · Cessna 150L
Air America Aerial Ads Cessna 150L · Accident: fuel exhaustion on approach
From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET) to Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA236
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
- N6622G
- Operator
- Air America Aerial Ads
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MITo Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1970)
- 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Wire
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- 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 commercial pilot was conducting a banner-tow flight. He reported that the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power after being airborne for at least 3 hours 9 minutes. He informed the tower controller of his emergency, released the banner, and conducted a forced landing to a nearby street. The airplane collided with a power line during the forced landing. The pilot reported that he had used a higher-than-normal engine power setting to maintain altitude throughout the accident flight.
A postaccident examination of the fuel system established that the left fuel tank was empty, that the right fuel tank contained residual fuel, and that the gascolator contained a few ounces of fuel. A subsequent test run established that there were no anomalies with the engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The operator had a policy that limited all banner-tow flights in the accident airplane to 3 hours or less to avoid fuel exhaustion. The operator also noted that environmental considerations, such as operating at a high-density altitude and/or in windy conditions, could require a higher-than-normal engine power setting and increased fuel consumption. Additionally, the operator told its pilots that banner-tow flights operating in such conditions should be reduced to between 2 hours 30 minutes and 2 hours 45 minutes. The pilot had received a verbal briefing within a month of the accident that covered the operator's policy regarding the maximum allowable flight duration in the accident airplane while towing banners and acknowledged knowing these procedures.
Probable cause
The pilot’s disregard of the banner-tow operator's policy regarding the maximum allowable flight duration, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA236
- Event ID
- 20160629X35606
- Case number
- CEN16LA236
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-06-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 41b221cb106b4ac24e22c85bbda04e2b3cea9a5be0226293e7478e0140adee05; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:01:43.983Z.