LAX02LA104 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: propeller failure/malfunction during initial climb
From Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP) to Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA104
- 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 172L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N7774G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laughlin Bullhead International Airport (IFP), Bullhead City, AZTo Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale, AZ
- 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
- Propeller failure/malfunction
- 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
- Maintenance, annual inspection › Not performed
- Propeller system/accessories, hub › 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
During the takeoff departure the student pilot experienced a catastropic failure of the propeller. Control tower personnel reported that shortly after takeoff, about 800 feet above the runway, the airplane experienced a mechanical problem and returned to the runway. They also noted substantial damage to the front of the engine compartment with debris scattered on the runway. Preliminary examination of the airplane revealed a disintegrated propeller hub with loss of a propeller blade and a severed crankshaft aft of the shaft flange. Substantial damage was evident to the firewall assembly with the engine pointing down about 30 degrees. The pilot stated that there were no prior indications of a discrepancy with the engine or airframe during the run-up or takeoff. He said that the engine ran smoothly until there was a big explosion that "took off the front end." The last documented annual inspection occured in January 2001; an inspection that is required every 12 months per FAR 91.409a (1), as are other inspections and procedures. According to records, the propeller was installed on the airplane during a powerplant modification February 1, 1988, at airplane tachometer reading of 3,966 hours. The propeller had been overhauled August 24, 1987, at 1,971 hours. At the time of the accident, the propeller had accrued 313 hours since overhaul, over 14 years prior. The McCauley factory recommended overhaul is 1,200 hours or 60 months. Examination of the propeller hub revealed a crack progression from a corrosion pit inside the hub to a point of overload failure. McCauley Service Bulletins 213 and 213A were issued January 20, 1994, and June 5, 1998, to provide improved lubrication and corrosion protection, as well as a built-in means of crack detection. According to SB213A, the recommended compliance time for propellers greater than 900 hours or 59-calendar months since last overhaul/penetrant inspection is within the next 100 hours, or at the next annual inspection, whichever occurs first.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to comply with maintenance/inspection requirements that resulted in a propeller failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA104
- Event ID
- 20020314X00346
- Case number
- LAX02LA104
- 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: 2f4ba2bc527f00e7e8e2e50d9200de4b4ebb59113bb725eb67be2ccf02a2b012; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:05:05.165Z.