LAX97LA242 · Cessna 180K
Cessna 180K · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 61B · Boulder City, NV to U77 · Spanish Fork, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA242
- 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 180K
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N2914K
- Operator
- Goodfellow, Lynn U · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 61B · Boulder City, NVTo U77 · Spanish Fork, UT
- 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 · climb to 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while climbing to cruise flight he heard a bang from the engine, followed by a major vibration. The engine continued vibrating and he was unable to maintain altitude, so he pulled the aircraft into a stall to stop and feather the propeller. He stated that he attempted to land in a parking lot, but came in too high and too fast. He touched down on a road and collided with a berm. A FAA inspector examined the aircraft and noted two holes in the engine case above the forward cylinder's connecting rods. Further examination of the powerplant revealed that the Nos. 2 and 6 cylinders were intact. Neither piston displayed any sign of heat discoloration around the skirts. Combustion deposits were noted on the piston crowns. There was no staining or piston crown edge erosion. Both skirts were failed. The No. 4 cylinder piston was disintegrated around the pin. The piston rod was bent and the piston pin was still intact through the rod wrist. Neither the rod nor the pin displayed any indication of heat distress. There was no scoring noted inside the cylinder barrel. The No. 4 bottom sparkplug was fouled with metal. The sump contained oil and large chunks of pistons. The pilot reported that the Continental O-470-U engine had 2536.1 hours of total time, 75.2 hours since the last inspection, and 806.8 hours since the last overhaul. The maintenance records revealed that the six pistons, each with a Superior Air Parts, Inc., part number SA 648029, were installed during the last major engine overhaul on February 19, 1990.
Probable cause
Failure of the number 4 piston for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA242
- Event ID
- 20001208X08429
- Case number
- LAX97LA242
- 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: 6a50bb2b88f4ec550ffb5e4cad80bd0ce278e3f1958b986f51b4089e235bc1a0; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:20:07.717Z.