LAX92LA129 · Piper PA-28-140
MR. Aircraft Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From O61 · Cameron Park, CA to Ukiah Municipal Airport (UKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA129
- 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
Piper PA-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N595SP
- Operator
- MR. Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O61 · Cameron Park, CATo Ukiah Municipal Airport (UKI), Ukiah, CA
- 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 · 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, replacement, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED PRIVATE PILOT AND A PASSENGER WERE IN THE CRUISE PORTION OF A CROSS COUNTRY PERSONAL FLIGHT WHEN THE ENGINE RPM AND OIL PRESSURE BEGAN TO DROP. THE ENGINE QUIT RUNNING AND THE PILOT SELECTED AN EMERGENCY LANDING AREA. THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING IN A GRASSY FIELD THAT HAD A DITCH ACROSS THE LANDING AREA. WHILE ATTEMPTING TO MANEUVER OVER THE DITCH, THE LANDING GEAR STRUCK THE SIDE OF THE DITCH, TEARING OFF THE LANDING GEAR AND DAMAGING BOTH WINGS. AN INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE ENGINE TO THE OIL COOLER OIL LINE RUPTURED. MAINTENANCE RECORDS INDICATED THAT THE OIL LINE HAD BEEN INSTALLED ON THE AIRPLANE FOR THE LAST 1,600 HOURS AND A 100-HOUR INSPECTION WAS PERFORMED 50 HOURS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT. REPLACEMENT OF THE LINE IS REQUIRED NO LATER THAN 1,000 HOURS OF SERVICE AND THE COMPANY MECHANIC DID NOT REPLACE THE OIL LINE.
Probable cause
THE COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL'S INADEQUATE 100-HOUR INSPECTION AND FAILURE TO REPLACE THE OIL LINE. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE RUPTURE OF THE OIL LINE AND THE DITCH THAT TRAVERSED THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA129
- Event ID
- 20001211X14142
- Case number
- LAX92LA129
- 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: a0f586b4c1d1a5f1d50058396b7febf8bd9ce248403efaf44f042928d48e6f21; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:21:40.488Z.