ERA16LA235 · Cessna 150 L
Cessna 150 L · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC) to Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA235
- 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 150 L
- 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
- N1567Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC), Peachtree City, GATo Peachtree City Falcon Field (FFC), Peachtree City, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1971)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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 student pilot took off for the solo flight. At 400 ft above ground level, the engine sputtered and experienced a total loss of power. The student pilot conducted a forced landing to a golf course. During the rollout, the airplane clipped trees and struck a small berm, which resulted in the collapse of the nose landing gear and substantial damage to the engine firewall.
Examination of the airplane revealed severe impact damage on the dome of the engine's No. 3 piston and the cylinder head. The exhaust valve was separated at the stem, and the intake valve was fractured. Fracture analysis of both valves and their associated fragments revealed a fatigue failure of the exhaust valve stem transition area at the valve head. The other fracture surfaces were consistent with overstress. The fatigue failure of the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve led to the total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve, which resulted in a total loss of engine power at low altitude after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA235
- Event ID
- 20160630X31108
- Case number
- ERA16LA235
- 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: 538c4e18db58179347c221c38102e0c74bf3aac3d1aa95ead742596a782a395c; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:35:26.489Z.