LAX91LA260 · Piper PA-22-135
Piper PA-22-135 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Ryan Field (RYN) to Sierra Vista Municipal Airport / Libby Army Air Field (FHU)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA260
- 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-22-135
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N1429C
- Operator
- Dennis KT. Kirby/John C Davis
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZTo Sierra Vista Municipal Airport / Libby Army Air Field (FHU), FT. HUACHUCA, AZ
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Engine assembly › Failure, partial
- Engine assembly, ring › Cracked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE FLIGHT, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH. THE PILOT EXECUTED EMERGENCY PROCEDURES TO TRY TO REGAIN ADEQUATE POWER. THE POWER WAS NOT RESTORED AND THE AIRCRAFT COULD NOT MAINTAIN LEVEL FLIGHT. THE PILOT EXECUTED A FORCED LANDING TO A FIELD. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A DITCH, TRAVELED ABOUT 20 YARDS, AND NOSED OVER. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE REVEALED THAT A PISTON RING IN THE NUMBER 3 CYLINDER WAS BROKEN WHICH ALLOWED BLOW BY IN THE CYLINDER. THE PILOT SAID THAT HE HAD VAPOR LOCK. HE TOLD AN FAA SAFETY INSPECTOR THAT HE HAD USED AUTOMOBILE GAS FOR THE FLIGHT AND THE GAS WAS TRANSPORTED USING 'OLD CANS' FROM HIS FATHER'S HOUSE. NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND TO INDICATE THAT THE AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE HAD VAPOR LOCK.
Probable cause
A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO A BROKEN PISTON RING IN THE NUMBER 3 CYLINDER, WHICH RESULTED IN THE AIRCRAFT'S INABILITY TO MAINTAIN LEVEL FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA260
- Event ID
- 20001212X17311
- Case number
- LAX91LA260
- 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: 1ae9a37d453fcaa3843df830d961ee81fde81d27fabf17f18ab0e110d7ef51e1; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:04:02.624Z.