ATL02LA052 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From ORMC Trauma Center Heliport (3FD1) to X-31 · Crystal River, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA052
- 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
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N6420M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From ORMC Trauma Center Heliport (3FD1), Hudson, FLTo X-31 · Crystal River, FL
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was in cruise flight at 2,300 feet looking at a map when he heard a noise and the sound of the engine changed. He looked out, noticed the slow movement of the propeller blades and observed the tachometer dropping to zero. He declared an emergency on guard frequency and initiated a forced landing. He observed a golf course and headed towards it. On approach he determined that the golfer's would be in the way so he transitioned the forced landing towards a road. On landing rollout the left wing hit a sign. Examination of the engine assembly revealed the crankcase center web mating surface exhibited severe fretting. The crankshaft center main bearing was found displaced aft at the same location, and the bearing half's were partially rotated out of the normal position. The bearing's displaced position blocked the oil supply hole that furnishes lubrication oil to the No. 3 connecting rod and the No.3 connecting rod failed due to oil starvation. Review of aircraft logbooks revealed the engine had exceeded the manufactures recommended time before overhaul.
Probable cause
Total loss of engine power due to oil starvation to the No. 3 connecting rod preceded by aft displacement of the center main bearing due to excessive wear. This resulted in a forced landing to none suitable terrain and subsequent on-ground collision with a road sign. Factor to the accident was the company operator management decision to exceed the manufactures recommended time before overhaul
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA052
- Event ID
- 20020226X00258
- Case number
- ATL02LA052
- 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, coordinates. 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: 956c9d16e485f270da03330da3e03f9bba540c0fa114e02cc5f46caaba945ce9; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:06:11.915Z.