ERA23LA348 · Cessna 150 G
Cessna 150 G · Accident: landing area undershoot
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA348
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 G
- 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
- N8474J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1967)
- 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 · flare/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
- Landing area undershoot
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
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 and mechanic were performing at flight following the completion of an annual inspection. After takeoff the pilot flew in the airport traffic pattern, departed the area, then elected to return. While on final approach to land, when the airplane was about 30 ft from the runway threshold, the pilot stated that the airplane was struck by a downdraft. He reported briefly hearing the stall warning horn but did not recall if he applied power and stated he likely froze and did not respond. The airplane struck the ground short of the runway in a bean field, collided with a ditch, then nosed over coming to rest inverted on the runway. The vertical stabilizer was substantially damaged. The pilot reported there was no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate compensation for prevailing wind conditions during the landing approach, which resulted in the airplane contacting the ground short of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA348
- Event ID
- 20230825192935
- Case number
- ERA23LA348
- 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, cause areas. 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: 64ea916b0b2e65c5ea0fd4ce26c5b5062f89b61b96fd378b31500568f77a0783; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:02:42.257Z.