ERA26FA230 · Cessna 150 L
Cessna 150 L · Accident: fuel starvation during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA26FA230
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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 L
- 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
- N156KA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1973)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On June 6, 2026, about 1458 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 150L, N156KA, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM), Kissimmee, Florida. The commercial pilot and student pilot were seriously injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight.
The student pilot reported through an interpreter that he had previously flown on an introductory flight, and the accident flight was his second flight. He reported the airplane’s fuel tanks were essentially full, but he did not recall the corresponding fuel gauge readings before the accident flight departed.
According to ADS-B data, the flight departed from runway 15 at ISM at 1417. After takeoff the flight proceeded south of ISM for a short distance before flying west of ISM in a racetrack pattern, then returning to ISM to join the downwind leg of the airport traffic pattern for runway 15. The flight then turned onto the base and final legs for runway 15.
The student pilot further reported that while climbing following a low approach, the engine “starts failing”, then the flight instructor noted that the left fuel tank gauge needle was “next to the red line,” or empty. The flight instructor attempted to switch the fuel shutoff valve to the right fuel tank, but the control got stuck in the middle, or off position. The engine “ran out of gas” and the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power. The flight instructor was able to move the fuel shutoff valve back on, but the engine did not respond. The flight instructor then informed the local controller of the problem and looked for a safe place to land. The student who was familiar with the stall warning horn did not recall whether he heard it or not before the accident.
The ADS-B data further indicated that the flight proceeded past the departure end of runway 15, and began a left turn with the groundspeed decreasing. The airplane crashed in an open field about 425 ft and 053° from the last ADS-B target.
The airplane came to rest upright in a right wing low attitude. About .5 gallon of fuel was drained from the left fuel tank, and about 7.5 gallons of fuel were drained from the right fuel tank. The fuel shutoff valve was found in the off position.
The wreckage was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA26FA230
- Event ID
- 20260607203132
- Case number
- ERA26FA230
- 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. 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: c817e60d82464601b98a6ea8221325c1f6f9379dd38e47a00ea667910897d05d; retrieved 2026-09-17T05:09:20.761Z.