WPR18FA244 · Cessna 150 F
Cessna 150 F · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Benton Field (O85) to Benton Field (O85)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18FA244
- 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
- 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
- N7990F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Benton Field (O85), Redding, CATo Benton Field (O85), Redding, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was departing on a personal flight in his single-engine airplane. Multiple witnesses described the airplane's initial climb as slow and steep, and recounted the airplane entering a left turn before descending to ground contact, consistent with an aerodynamic stall.
Although several witnesses reported that the engine sound during the initial climb was abnormal, examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The wing flaps were found extended to 20°; the airplane's owner's manual suggested 10° of flap extension for takeoffs from soft or rough runways; however, the manual also indicates that flaps can reduce the climb to 50 ft. Federal Aviation Administration guidance states that flap deflection of up to 15° primarily produces lift with minimal drag, while flap extension greater than 15° produces a large increase in drag and a significant nose-up pitching moment in high-wing equipped airplanes. It is likely that, during the takeoff with 20° of flaps extended, the airplane became airborne at a lower than normal airspeed and entered a climb at a higher than normal nose-up pitch attitude, placing the airplane very close to its critical angle of attack. During the climb, the pilot exceeded the critical angle of attack, likely by allowing the airspeed to decay due to the airplane's nose-up pitch attitude, and the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall at an altitude too low for recovery.
Toxicology testing of the pilot indicated the presence of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the active compound in marijuana. There is no known relationship between tissue levels and impairment; therefore, whether the pilot's use of a potentially impairing substance contributed to the accident could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to properly configure the wing flaps for takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18FA244
- Event ID
- 20180829X54116
- Case number
- WPR18FA244
- 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: 79575f2e284d2391d37ac47ade863a6cbc8cbe01d7a1fb0384d25d0bd904bc65; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:47:03.668Z.