LAX91LA090 · Riddell LANCAIR 235 LANCAIR 23
Riddell LANCAIR 235 LANCAIR 23 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA090
- 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
Riddell LANCAIR 235 LANCAIR 23
- Aircraft type
- Riddell LANCAIR 235
- 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
- N17S
- Operator
- Kenneth E. Parks · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Delamination
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS ON CLIMB OUT WHEN A LOUD BANG WAS HEARD, FOLLOWED BY AN ENGINE OVERSPEED THEN ENGINE STOPPAGE. AFTER THE FORCED LANDING, THE PILOTS FOUND THAT BOTH WOODEN PROPELLER BLADES HAD SEPARATED FROM THE STEEL HUB ASSEMBLY. THE PROPELLER HUB WAS REMOVED FROM THE ENGINE AND SENT TO THE MANUFACTURER FOR FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS AND DISASSEMBLY UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF FAA INSPECTORS. THE MANUFACTURER STATED THAT ALL INTERNAL COMPONENTS WERE FUNCTIONAL, HOWEVER, THE CAM ADJUSTMENT FOR THE HIGH AND LOW PITCH STOP SETTINGS HAD BEEN ALTERED FROM THE FACTORY SETTINGS. THE BLADE BUTT ENDS RETAINED IN THE HUB WERE REMOVED AND SUBMITTED TO THE FOREST PRODUCTS LABORATORY OF THE US DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR ANALYSIS. ACCORDING TO THE LABORATORY THE WOODEN BLADES FRACTURED AND SEPARATED DUE TO A HYDROLYSIS INTERACTION BETWEEN THE WOOD AND THE ADHESIVE CAUSED BY EXCESS MOISTURE AND HEAT. THE HYDROLYSIS IS A CHEMICAL DECOMPOSITION PROCESS OF THE WOOD AND GLUE RELATIONSHIP.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PROPELLER BLADES DUE TO A WEAKENING OF THE WOOD STRUCTURE DUE TO ACID HYDROLYSIS. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE OF THE PROPELLER ASSEMBLY BY ALLOWING EXPOSURE TO EXCESSIVE MOISTURE AND HEAT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA090
- Event ID
- 20001212X16466
- Case number
- LAX91LA090
- 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: 833582e44e27c3d0ae5d7221823c9c1039e381fa20aab1f94103550a34d03650; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:31:40.705Z.