LAX94LA233 · Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201
Rainbow Air Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA233
- 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
Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N36025
- Operator
- Rainbow Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, ORTo Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 · cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that he heard a grinding noise in the engine followed by a prop overspeed. Then the engine suddenly lost all power. ARTCC provided radar vectors to nearest airport and the pilot set up for a dead stick approach; however, he was unable to make the runway. The aircraft touched down gear up in a ditch, bounced out and onto parking lot, then crashed into a parked aircraft. Disassembly of the engine revealed fretting on the parting surfaces of the number 1 main bearing saddle. The crankshaft was found fatigue fractured across the number 1 crankpin at the interface with the number 2 long cheek. One rod end cap nut was found without a cotter pin installed. The second rod end cap nut was found with a shorter than normal cotter pin installed. The number 1 connecting rod bearing was found partially swaged out of the rod, with fretting observed on the bearing surfaces. The side faces of connecting rod number 1 were scored. The engine records revealed that cylinders number 1 and 4 were replaced on May 9, 1994, 29 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
the fatigue fracture of the crankshaft due to improper maintenance installation of the number 1 cylinder and the inadequate torquing of the case through bolts at that location.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA233
- Event ID
- 20001206X01553
- Case number
- LAX94LA233
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: c82a8f58be940b17293106620c4d65ba0c0fab53281a981f18daf1f28a152adc; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:37:25.908Z.