GAA16CA453 · Cessna 150 F
Cessna 150 F · Accident during landing
From Bradford County Airport (N27) to Venango Regional Airport (FKL)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA453
- 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 F
- 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
- N8120S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bradford County Airport (N27), Towanda, PATo Venango Regional Airport (FKL), Franklin, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Landing · aborted after touchdown
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that during a gusty crosswind landing the airplane touched down and drifted off the runway to the right. He further reported that he added power to abort the landing, but "with the carburetor heat still on, and the flaps at 30 degrees and the temperature of nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit outside, we did not regain control." The airplane pitched up and the left wing hit the ground. Subsequently, the airplane was "vaulted" over to the right side of the runway and impacted terrain. which resulted in a collapsed right main and nose gear.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage.
The student pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The flight instructor reported that the student pilot flared a little high and he thought the landing would be "just a little hard" and he allowed the student to continue. The flight instructor further reported that during the aborted landing, he attempted to help the student pilot maintain control of the airplane, but "it was too late".
The automated weather observing system at the airport about 5 minutes before the accident recorded the wind at 180 degrees true at 12 knots, gusting to 16 knots. The student pilot reported that the landing was on runway 30. The same automated weather observing system about 15 minutes after the accident recorded the wind at 210 degrees true at 12 knots, gusting to 16 knots.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain pitch control resulting in a hard landing and the flight instructor's delayed action to assist the student pilot during the aborted landing, which resulted in a runway excursion, a right main and nose gear collapse, and fuselage damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA453
- Event ID
- 20160829X35127
- Case number
- GAA16CA453
- 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: 96ed8af3100063487c7de1175b7d7ca3d4cce5b678e24933de8072deac61c9c1; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:12:13.046Z.