LAX96LA124 · Schweizer G-164B
Schweizer G-164B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA124
- 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
Schweizer G-164B
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer G-164
- 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
- N6674Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Engine assembly, bearing › Overtemperature
- Engine assembly, master rod › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was about 1/4 mile from the airport at 50 feet in the initial climb, when the engine began a severe vibration, then it stopped, abruptly. The pilot selected the only available landing area, which was a muddy field, and the aircraft nosed over during the landing ground roll. Preliminary examination of the engine revealed that the crankshaft was seized and would not move. Partial disassembly of the engine revealed that it had sustained a catastrophic internal failure. The No. 5 piston (master) was found out of it's respective cylinder, with the connecting rod elongated and bent. The rod end cap was attached on one side and separated on the other. Evidence of heat and stretching was observed near the crankpin area of the rod. The bearing could not be examined due to internal damage of the engine.
Probable cause
overheating and failure of the engine's master rod and master rod bearing due to oil starvation. A factor relating to the accident was: the lack of suitable terrain for an emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA124
- Event ID
- 20001208X05288
- Case number
- LAX96LA124
- 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: 2d9b7756ce626ce329b94e93ac9e07b15d691aee4563c98d4491e04559d1af26; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:48:27.512Z.