LAX97LA037 · Cessna 152
Sunbird Flight Services Cessna 152 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From 40G to Sedona Airport (SEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA037
- 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N714VX
- Operator
- Sunbird Flight Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 40GTo Sedona Airport (SEZ), Sedona, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, bearing › Overtemperature
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Lubricating system, oil pressure pump › Foreign object damage
- Lubricating system, oil pressure pump › Sheared
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during initial climb, the engine gradually lost power. Subsequently, it crash landed on uneven/rocky terrain and came to rest against trees in an inverted attitude. Density altitude was computed to be about 7,300 feet. The pilot reported that prior to the flight, when he first started the engine, no indication of oil pressure was observed. He shut down the engine and purchased 1 quart of oil. No abnormal indications were observed during the subsequent ground check out or takeoff roll. However, during the initial climb, the oil pressure indicator dropped to zero pounds. A teardown examination of the engine was performed. The crankshaft assembly revealed signatures consistent with heat distress in the number 2 main journal area. The oil pump's drive shaft was found broken. A foreign metal object was observed wedged between the teeth of the pump's driving and driven gears, and the engagement end of the oil pump drive shaft was found sheared off. The foreign object resembled a small bolt or screw, which was not used in the manufacture of the engine.
Probable cause
a foreign object in the oil system, which resulted in failure of the oil pump, oil starvation, loss of engine power, and a subsequent forced landing. Rough/uneven terrain in the emergency landing area was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA037
- Event ID
- 20001208X07067
- Case number
- LAX97LA037
- 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: 781f167b3536217d8cf45c0c217ddc03a914746799f801467da0bbae2d423c76; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:19:51.108Z.