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ERA24LA105 · Cessna 150 G

5 Feb 2024 · Parkland, FL, United States

Cessna 150 G · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route

From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP) to Airglades Airport (2IS)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA24LA105
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
0
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
N3747J
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Pompano Beach, FLTo Airglades Airport (2IS), Clewiston, FL
Aircraft age
About 57 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
En route
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 engine power (partial)
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 power plant

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot stated that, shortly after takeoff and at an altitude of 2,000 ft, the engine was not producing full power. The pilot checked the airplane’s configuration and settings and then made a 180° turn to attempt a return to the departure airport. The engine started to shake and run rough and the pilot realized that the airplane would not make it back to the airport. The pilot identified a road to land on; about 50 ft above the road, the engine lost all power. After touchdown, the right wing tip contacted a tree branch and the right wing sustained damage to the wing root, outer leading edge, and the wing spar. Examination of the engine revealed a roughly 6-inch hole in the top of the engine case just behind the No. 2 cylinder. Further examination revealed indications of oil starvation, though the oil tank was found to contain 5 quarts of oil, and the oil pump was found to be functional. The No. 2 connecting rod was found to be twisted, displayed thermal damage, and was separated from the crankshaft. The Nos. 1, 3, and 4, rod end bearings displayed evidence consistent with extrusion of the bearing material. According to airplane maintenance records, a major overhaul of the engine occurred about 187 hours of operation before the accident.

Probable cause

A catastrophic engine failure due to oil starvation to the main bearings for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA24LA105
Event ID
20240206193749
Case number
ERA24LA105
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, 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: 46bb4ab220dd52eae6fd3ce4cab3f912c95455653e1a71e97ab214d82e30b4bc; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:29:09.160Z.