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LAX93LA200 · Grumman 164A

5 May 1993 · Biggs, CA, United States

Williams Ag Service Grumman 164A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route

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Event

NTSB case
LAX93LA200
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
1 · 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

Grumman 164A

Aircraft type
Grumman 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
N5249
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
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
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Engine assembly, cylinder › Failure, total

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT HAD JUST DEPARTED AN AIRSTRIP TO BEGIN AN AERIAL APPLICATION OF RICE SEED ON ADJACENT FIELDS. AFTER DEPARTURE, WITNESSES OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE AT ABOUT 50 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, WHILE EN ROUTE TO A FIELD. THEY REPORTED HEARING THE ENGINE 'POP' AND SPUTTER. THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING TO AN OPEN FIELD, NEXT TO WATER COVERED FIELDS AND BORDERED BY AN IRRIGATION DITCH. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE INSIDE SLOPE OF A RAISED LEVEE AND NOSED OVER. A POST-CRASH FIRE ERUPTED AROUND THE ENGINE, WHICH WAS LIMITED TO THE ENGINE AREA. AN EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THE NUMBER 2 CYLINDER HAD FAILED AT THE TOP OF THE CYLINDER BARREL.

Probable cause

FAILURE OF THE NUMBER 2 ENGINE CYLINDER. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE LACK OF ALTITUDE FOR THE PILOT TO MAKE A SUCCESSFULL FORCED LANDING.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX93LA200
Event ID
20001211X12417
Case number
LAX93LA200
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: 2e09995cc049b09f8fc624450a4a0adf1392ee0aa4cc0616c0ad7746f390cdb8; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:34:25.040Z.