LAX02LA136 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Apple Valley Airport (APV) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA136
- 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 172
- 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
- N211CA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apple Valley Airport (APV), Apple Valley, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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 · 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
- Partial 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, cylinder › Fatigue
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Fractured
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, top overhaul, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An engine cylinder barrel failure occurred during cruise flight and the airplane force landed in unsuitable terrain causing substantial damage. The failed cylinder had been repaired by a Federal Aviation Administration Approved Repair Station, and had been installed 11 hours prior to the accident. Post accident examination revealed that the number 3 engine cylinder steel barrel had separated 360 degrees around its circumference. Close examination of the failed cylinder barrel revealed fatigue cracking originating from a rusty area on the cylinder barrel. Additionally, cooling fin rust damage had the appearance of having been profiled by filing or grinding.
Probable cause
a reconditioned engine cylinder barrel failure due to previous rust damage and improper maintenance practices.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA136
- Event ID
- 20020419X00544
- Case number
- LAX02LA136
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-04-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0779d4322b1e8bcda9cca8ac91051ea34460fc0aadc6a1d89c175ee62be1f078; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:44:53.759Z.