LAX93LA183 · Cessna 172N
Silverwest Aviation Cessna 172N · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From P06 · Bullhead City, AZ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA183
- 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 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N6292D
- Operator
- Silverwest Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From P06 · Bullhead City, AZTo 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 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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, overhaul, not performed
- Ignition system, magneto › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While approaching the destination airport a total loss of engine power was experienced. The pilot made a forced landing on rough terrain and the airplane nosed over about 200 yards short of the runway threshold. An examination of the engine, which had been operated for 2,184 hours since last being overhauled in 1984, revealed its single drive dual Bendix magneto had internally failed. The magneto had a total time of about 4,309 hours and was 14 years old. No log book evidence was found indicating it had ever been overhauled. Internal exam of the magneto revealed that the bearing stack around the rotating magnet shaft was devoid of lubrication and the bearings did not rotate freely. The breaker cam was bluish in color and coked with cam follower material. The cam followers had decreased in size to the point that the points did not open. The operator had performed the last two inspections, and had not complied with Bendix's suggested four year magneto overhaul schedule as published in FAA and Bendix bulletins. The operator stated that he only obtained bulletins when adopted by regulation into airworthiness directives. Bendix reported that bearing lubricants deteriorate beyond their useful life in four years.
Probable cause
the total loss of engine power due to the failure of the magneto in the ignition system. The magneto failure resulted from the operator's lack of voluntary compliance with the manufacturers suggested overhaul cycle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA183
- Event ID
- 20001211X12176
- Case number
- LAX93LA183
- 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: 102f3e694286dd640813f6de83582cea0209b2cbaee4e1bca68d3b13f04ce639; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:10:13.533Z.