CEN18LA015 · Cessna 150J
Cessna 150J · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Willmar Municipal Airport John L Rice Field (2006) (BDH) to Willmar Municipal Airport John L Rice Field (2006) (BDH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA015
- 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 150J
- 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
- N50609
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Willmar Municipal Airport John L Rice Field (2006) (BDH), Willmar, MNTo Willmar Municipal Airport John L Rice Field (2006) (BDH), Willmar, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1968)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- 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 stated that, when he initiated the takeoff for a flight review on the damp, soft runway, the airplane accelerated slowly. The flight instructor reported that he felt the airplane's nose "dive" twice, so he instructed the pilot to increase back pressure and get the airplane in ground effect because of the soft runway. The instructor then took control of the airplane, and it lifted off the runway and subsequently became airborne about 2,000 ft down the 3,000-ft-long runway. The instructor lowered the nose in ground effect to gain airspeed, but the airplane did not accelerate, and it was nearing an aerodynamic stall. The instructor then chose to land on a nearby field. He turned the airplane toward the field but had to level it off because he was concerned it was going to stall. During the landing, he flared the airplane too high, and the airplane impacted the field hard on the main landing gear. The nose landing gear dug into the soft terrain and collapsed, and the airplane then nosed over.
During a postaccident test-run, the engine started without hesitation. The engine ran smoothly at various power settings, including full throttle. Given that the engine operated normally during the postaccident test-run, it is likely that the airplane did not accelerate properly due to the pilot's improper soft-field takeoff, which resulted in his failure to attain adequate airspeed. The instructor's subsequent improper landing flare led to a hard, forced landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper conduct of the soft-field takeoff, which led to his failure to attain adequate airspeed, and the flight instructor’s subsequent improper landing flare, which resulted in a hard, forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA015
- Event ID
- 20171018X01510
- Case number
- CEN18LA015
- 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: cc31d97096bdffa091496b045f76b380db75c8deda7363a829f735b9e288a20a; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:56:37.359Z.