LAX93LA286 · Stephens VP2
Stephens VP2 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From O20 to O20
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA286
- 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
Stephens VP2
- Aircraft type
- Stephens VP2
- 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
- N31349
- Operator
- Thomas D. Dunham · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O20To O20
- 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
- Partial 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
- Ignition system, ignition coil › Cracked
- Ignition system, ignition coil › Shorted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff initial climb the engine RPM's dropped from 3,150 to about 2,600. The power level produced by the engine was insufficient to maintain altitude and the pilot landed in a corn field about one-half mile from the airport. The aircraft sustained damage during the on ground collision with corn plants and soft, plowed dirt. The Volkswagen 1800cc engine and related subsystems were taken to an FAA certified repair station for a detailed examination. The repair station noted that the engine had been modified with the installation of a single Slick model 4216 magneto for the ignition system. The magneto was removed from the engine and disassembled. A crack was observed in the coil at a location close to the magneto case. Black ash deposits were noted on both the coil and the magneto housing.
Probable cause
the grounding of the magneto coil to the magneto case due to a crack in the coil sheath.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA286
- Event ID
- 20001211X12949
- Case number
- LAX93LA286
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-07-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0850a8f96b8dba5521377cb376477ee72c07eb808da6d3e28984ef72b5a8ebfa; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:52:43.930Z.