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Atlas / NTSB / WPR21LA012

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR21LA012

2020-10-11 Bishop, California, United States Airport · BIH Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N22963

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 150H

Engine

CONT MOTOR 0-200 SERIES (100 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19680514

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A205B6

Registrant of record

SWIFT JOHN S

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

A loss of engine power due to the pilot’s inadvertent closure of the mixture control which starved the engine of fuel and resulted in a hard landing and collision with terrain.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, while on final approach he was high, so he reduced power, extended 10o of flaps and entered a slip while he applied carburetor heat. Shortly thereafter the engine lost power. The pilot unsuccessfully attempted an engine restart. The pilot then made a turn to an aera that he thought was suitable for landing. The airplane landed hard and subsequently came to rest inverted, substantially damaging the vertical stabilizer and horizontal stabilizer. The pilot reported that he mistakenly pulled the mixture control rather than carburetor heat. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of equip/system-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Incorrect use/operation

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2020_WPR21LA012.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗