LAX85FA122 · Piper PA-24-400
Piper PA-24-400 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Boulder City Municipal Airport (BLD) to General William J Fox Airfield (WJF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85FA122
- 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-24-400
- 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
- N3983D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boulder City Municipal Airport (BLD), Boulder City, NVTo General William J Fox Airfield (WJF), Lancaster, 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 · descent
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Other person › Maintenance, replacement, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER INITIATING AN ENROUTE LETDOWN, THE ACFT EXPERIENCED A CATASTROPHIC ENGINE FAILURE AT ABOUT 4,500 FT MSL. PLT SELECTED A ROAD FOR AN ATTEMPTED EMERGENCY LANDING, BUT A CAR TURNED ONTO THE ROAD IN FRONT OF HIM AND FORCED A DIVERSION TO A NEARBY FIELD. THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED BERMS, RUTS AND CLUMPS OF BUSHES AFTER TOUCHDOWN. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE NUMBER 6 CYLINDER CONNECTING ROD HAD FAILED NEAR THE CRANKSHAFT END WITH HIGH CYCLE FATIGUE EVIDENT OVER ABOUT 60% OF THE MATERIAL THICKNESS. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT MAINTENANCE RECORDS DISCLOSED THAT SINCE MANUFACTURE IN 1964, THE ACFT HAD ACCRUED A TOTAL OF 1,299 HRS, WITH ONLY 109 HRS IN OPERATION SINCE 1976. LYCOMING PUBLICATIONS INDICATED THAT THE ROD HAD BEEN SUPERCEDED IN PRODUCTION SEVERAL TIMES, WITH THIS PARTICULAR PART NUMBER NOT ALLOWED FOR REUSE AT OVERHAUL. THE MANUFACTURERS RECOMMENDED OVERHAUL PERIOD IS 1,800 HRS OR 10 YEARS TIME IN SERVICE, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85FA122
- Event ID
- 20001214X35537
- Case number
- LAX85FA122
- 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: 5aa514eb320e8e5865f28f045eabaf672cae35971252c4c8bee62f8414612d7d; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:59:49.718Z.