LAX99LA248 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Whiteman Airport (KWHP) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA248
- 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6597P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Whiteman Airport (KWHP), PACOIMA, 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
- 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
- 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
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Fatigue
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Separation
- Engine assembly, timing gear › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Propeller system/accessories, counterweight › Dynamic imbalance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructor said that the power came up smoothly on the takeoff roll, but that the engine suddenly quit at 600 feet agl. The flight instructor took the controls, lined up on a major interstate highway, and touched down in the northbound lanes. The right wing struck a bush, which spun the airplane off the highway and down the embankment next to the highway. An engine teardown disclosed that the crankshaft idler gear (left magneto) was detached from the mounting pad at the back of the crankcase. The crankshaft gear was not secured to the crankshaft, and the locating dowel pin was fractured and separated. Further examination of the idler gear shaft and attaching parts revealed severe wear signatures on the attachment bolts and locking plate, and the bolts displayed signatures consistent with prolonged contact with the rotating idler gear. The bore at the idler gear shaft-mounting pad was also severely worn and elongated. The crankshaft counterbore and corresponding gear revealed fretting and corrosion signatures at the mating surfaces, and the dowel pin was separated in line with the parting surfaces of the gear and counterbore. The dowel pin fracture surface displayed fatigue. A propeller overhaul was completed 20 hours prior to the accident. The Hartzell propeller manual prohibits balance weights in excess of 0.9 ounces (25.51 grams) in any one location on the spinner. Weights totaling 36 grams were found on one location on the airplane spinner.
Probable cause
The failure/separation of the crankshaft idler gear and the fatigue failure and subsequent separation of the crankshaft dowel pin due to the improper static and dynamic balance of the propeller by maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA248
- Event ID
- 20001212X19299
- Case number
- LAX99LA248
- 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: e5c497198ff6d12657eafa788b34940ff109299fa6f20a220124ce0a158174e9; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:34:09.615Z.