LAX87FA072 · North American T-28C
North American T-28C · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA072
- 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
- 1 · 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
North American T-28C
- Aircraft type
- North American T-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
- N9022Y
- Operator
- Ronald S. Miller · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY)To 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly › Overspeed
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLTS WERE PRACTICING LNDGS, AND WERE ON THE 3RD FLT AFTER THE ENG HAD BEEN OVERHAULED. AFTER TAKEOFF FROM A TOUGH-&-GO, THE INSTRUCTOR NOTICED THAT THE OIL TEMP WAS HIGH. SOON THEREAFTER, THE ENG BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH, THEN IT SEIZED. UNABLE TO GET BACK TO THE RWY, HE LANED IN A PLOWED FLD. HE SAID HE INTENDED TO LND WITH THE GEAR RETRACTED, BUT THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN WITH THE GEAR EXTDD, THEN BOUNCED & NOSED OVR. THE CFI BELIEVED THE STUDENT MAY HAVE EXTDD THE GEAR, JUST BFR LNDG. INV REVEALED A CATASTROPHIC INTERNAL FAILURE OF THE ENG HAD OCCURRED. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF AN OVERSPEED. A WITNESS RPRTD THAT DUE TO IMPROPER INSTLN OF THE CARB THROTTLE ARM, THE ENG WENT TO FULL PWR, WHEN IT WAS STARTED AFTER OVERHAUL. RPRTDLY, IT STAYED AT FULL PWR FOR SVRL MIN BFR IT COULD BE SHUT DOWN. A TEARDOWN REVEALED THE CONNECTING RODS HAD FAILED, THE CYL SKIRTS WERE DMGD, 1 PISTON WAS DESTROYED & OTRS WERE DMGD, SVRL BEARINGS WERE WORN & OVERHEATED, METAL CHIPS/CONTAMINATION FND IN ENG & OIL SYS. ENG HAD BEEN OPERD ABOUT 7 HRS SINCE OVERHAUL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA072
- Event ID
- 20001213X30082
- Case number
- LAX87FA072
- 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: 0fe640c109c8f357c096d6e0533ba687da6fbde91f867611ba012c82e83c85de; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:16:22.660Z.