LAX82FA174 · Martin 404
Martin 404 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Madera Municipal Airport (MAE) to Casper, WY
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FA174
- 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
- 0
- 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
Martin 404
- Aircraft type
- Martin 404
- 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
- N40445
- Operator
- Clayton V. Curtis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Madera Municipal Airport (MAE), Madera, CATo Casper, WY
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, master rod › Failure, total
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Lubricating system, oil line › Cracked
- Other person › Maintenance, improper
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TAKEOFF THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO TRAIL A BROWN SUBSTANCE. ABOUT 3 MILES FROM THE AIRPORT THE RIGHT ENGINE OIL PRESSURE DROPPED. THE PILOT DECIDED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT. WHEN HE THOUGHT THE RUNWAY WAS ATTAINABLE HE LOWERED THE FLAPS; HOWEVER, A LOSS OF POWER IN THE LEFT ENGINE OCCURRED AND A LANDING WAS MADE IN A WHEAT FIELD. INVESTIGATION REVEALED FAILURE OF THE FRONT MASTER ROD BEARING IN THE RIGHT ENGINE. THE AIRCRAFT HAD NOT BEEN FLOWN FOR FIVE YEARS PRIOR TO THIS FLIGHT AND EVIDENCE OF OIL STARVATION WAS APPARENT IN BOTH ENGINES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FA174
- Event ID
- 20020917X03651
- Case number
- LAX82FA174
- 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. 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: 95c452786744940c4d574c45f61fd7b4540a21ffbce14aebdcb99127fdb485c1; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:14:57.393Z.