CEN18LA274 · Cessna 150 H
Cessna 150 H · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Gastons Airport (3M0) to Gastons Airport (3M0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA274
- 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 H
- 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
- N50183
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gastons Airport (3M0), Lakeview, ARTo Gastons Airport (3M0), Lakeview, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 50 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Physical
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that after takeoff from the grass airstrip, the left wing impacted a tree branch. He overcorrected from the impact and stalled the airplane. The airplane impacted a grass clearing and came to rest inverted near trees, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, and the empennage.
Although his blood alcohol level was not tested after the accident, the student pilot stated that he drank alcohol during the afternoon of the flight. In addition, he admitted to taking baclofen and bupropion, which are both potentially impairing medications that carry specific warnings about increased impairing effects when used in combination with alcohol.
It is likely the pilot was impaired by his use of a combination of alcohol, baclofen, and bupropion and that these effects likely increased his willingness to fly while impaired and prevented him from safely taking off.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s impairment by alcohol and multiple medications, which led to his failure to maintain obstacle clearance during takeoff and the subsequent exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA274
- Event ID
- 20180712X51213
- Case number
- CEN18LA274
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-07-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d6ab5c75e601e676db303c3d5eae86c59810e1a45b14a798591a89efb3ba7177; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:50:10.741Z.