LAX01LA154 · Piper PA-22-135
Piper PA-22-135 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Oxnard Airport (OXR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA154
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- N75343
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oxnard Airport (OXR), Oxnard, 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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Fractured
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane made an off field forced landing following a loss of engine power during climb out from a touch-and-go landing. The pilot had practiced touch-and-go landings for over an hour and experienced no difficulties with the airplane. After a break, he completed another preflight inspection and practiced more landings. As the airplane climbed through 200 feet on the fourth takeoff, the engine made a clunking noise and stopped producing power. He steered the airplane to an open field and landed on soft dirt, but the airplane dug in and damaged the wings, stabilizer, landing gear, and propeller. The engine had accumulated about 1,860 hours since it had been manufactured in 1953, and the factory had no record of it returning since that time. The engine had accumulated about 910 hours since a field overhaul in 1960, and about 255 hours since a "top overhaul" in 1970, when the exhaust valves were replaced. All cylinders were undamaged except cylinder No. 3, which exhibited extensive mechanical damage. The exhaust valve for cylinder No. 3 fractured and separated where the valve stem transitions to the valve head. The fracture surfaces on the valve pieces were obliterated by the mechanical damage. The piston face exhibited mechanical damage over most of its surface, which contained two holes. The corresponding push rod was slightly bent, but there was no evidence of the valve sticking.
Probable cause
The fracture and separation of the number 3 cylinder exhaust valve head resulting in a loss of engine power and a forced landing. A factor in the accident was the soft field where the forced landing occurred.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA154
- Event ID
- 20010507X00896
- Case number
- LAX01LA154
- 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: ef8d77dc80dbda71aabeaa53fb504a268ad421b45befc95ef7789846c8374891; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:00:44.431Z.