IAD02LA053 · Beech V35A
SkyWorld Aviation Beech V35A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hagerstown Regional Richard A Henson Field (HGR) to W66 · Warrenton, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD02LA053
- 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
Beech V35A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N45RG
- Operator
- SkyWorld Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hagerstown Regional Richard A Henson Field (HGR), Hagerstown, MDTo W66 · Warrenton, VA
- 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, other › Undertorqued
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was en route when the engine lost partial power. The pilot was unable to maintain airspeed or altitude, and elected to perform a forced landing to a field. During the landing, the airplane struck a fence post with the left wing. Examination of the engine crankcase halves revealed severe fretting at the number 2 main bearing bosses. The number 2 main bearing was broken into pieces and observed in the oil sump. Examination of the crankshaft revealed a fatigue fracture through the crank cheek between the number 2 main journal and the number 2 rod journal. The fracture surface and the journal surface were heat-tinted, and revealed evidence of rotational scoring. According to the engine logbook, the crankcase through bolts were torqued about 772 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
Inadequate torque of the crankcase through bolts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD02LA053
- Event ID
- 20020617X00900
- Case number
- IAD02LA053
- 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: 5d4ab36da5e61d4f845c2181e9f9321b578603358c4efcfe6c1e66fdd1ea1307; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:42:59.892Z.