LAX02LA204 · Beech V35A
Beech V35A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Cottonwood Airport (P52) to Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA204
- 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
- N8327N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cottonwood Airport (P52), Cottonwood, AZTo Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale Muni, 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
- 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 bolt › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During initial takeoff climb, the pilot heard a "loud bang" from the engine, followed by a smell of fuel in the cockpit, a loss of fuel pressure, and a substantial engine vibration. During an attempt to return to the airport, the engine lost power, and the pilot initiated a forced landing. During the landing, the airplane impacted a cattle gate and came to rest on its nose. Examination of the engine revealed that the #1 lower connecting rod bolt was fractured at the bolt's dowel section, which corresponded with the connecting rod and rod cap split line. According to the engine manufacturer's metallurgist, the fracture initiated at the outer diameter of the bolt's dowel section, and the fracture progressed in fatigue until the bolt fractured as a result overstress. The bolt's dowel section exhibited fretting damage at the fracture origin. At the time of the accident, the engine had accumulated 9.64 hours since the annual inspection, and 195.84 hours since major overhaul.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power as a result of the failure of the #1 lower connecting rod bolt due to fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA204
- Event ID
- 20020624X00960
- Case number
- LAX02LA204
- 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: b31bdd37dfd6fbf02004aaf0024b74f669eb2a995abad6abde0d94e8603054f2; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:49:13.355Z.