CEN25LA026 · Cessna 150 J
Cessna 150 J · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From Livingston County Spencer J. Hardy Airport (OZW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25LA026
- 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 J
- 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
- N51046
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livingston County Spencer J. Hardy Airport (OZW), Howell, MITo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 56 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
- Landing
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he decided to utilize a known closed runway to land at the airport, due to the wind conditions. During the approach to the dry turf runway, he reported the airplane was “considerably too high and almost certainly too fast.” The pilot deployed full flaps, and the airplane started to descend “steeply” toward the end of the runway. When the airplane touched down on the runway, it bounced, and the airplane departed the runway straight ahead. The airplane crossed a road and impacted several trees next to a home. The airplane came to rest upright, and the pilot was able to egress from the airplane without further incident. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or the engine that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot further reported that during the approach, he should have performed a go-around and established a stabilized approach. According to the Federal Aviation Administration Airport/Facility Directory, the runway the pilot selected to use is not listed for use at the airport.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain a stabilized approach, that resulted in a runway excursion and subsequent collision with trees. Contributing to the accident, was the pilot’s decision to attempt to land to a closed runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25LA026
- Event ID
- 20241022195366
- Case number
- CEN25LA026
- 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: 42c625176c3da76bd78ccbb580760aa1b436615007854b042648a204ebce9c14; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:24:26.442Z.