LAX82FVG29 · Cessna 150
Flying Panthers Cessna 150 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Sacramento, CA to Sacramento, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FVG29
- 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
Cessna 150
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N22912
- Operator
- Flying Panthers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sacramento, CATo Sacramento, 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 · climb to 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 › Failure, total
- Maintenance, overhaul › Inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PURPOSE OF THE FLIGHT WAS TO "SHAKEDOWN" THE AIRCRAFT AND TO BREAK IN A NEWLY OVERHAULED ENGINE. A THOROUGH PREFLIGHT WAS MADE AND SOME WATER WAS DRAINED FROM THE FUEL TANKS. (THE AIRCRAFT HAD NOT BEEN FLOWN FOR SOME PERIOD OF TIME.) WHILE CLIMBING AFTER TAKEOFF, THE CYLINDER HEAD TEMPERATURE (CHT) WAS NOTED AT 550 DEG FAHRENHEIT AND CLIMBING SLOWLY. THE PILOT LEVELED AT 700 FT AND THROTTLED BACK, AND THE CHT STABILIZED AT ABOUT 555 DEG. ABOUT 1 MINUTE LATER, THE ENGINE BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH, AND SUBSEQUENTLY, THERE WAS A CONSIDERABLE POWER LOSS. THE PILOT SELECTED A FIELD FOR A FORCED LANDING. BUT ON FINAL APPROACH, HE NOTICED THAT IT WAS FRESHLY PLOWED AND ROUGH. AN S-TURN WAS MADE TO LAND ON A GRAVEL ROAD. THE AIRCRAFT WAS STILL IN A BANK DURING TOUCHDOWN. WHILE ON THE LANDING ROLL, THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO KEEP THE AIRCRAFT ON THE ROAD WITH A 6-8 KT CROSSWIND FROM THE RIGHT. THE PLANE COLLIDED WITH A FENCE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE NO 1 EXHAUST VALVE ROCKER ARM, PN 639615, HAD FAILED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FVG29
- Event ID
- 20020917X03720
- Case number
- LAX82FVG29
- 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: cd39b80eeb0384c83b1b344338aa3e4acd8608a75a1e3540badf2545e8633763; retrieved 2026-09-24T02:11:11.011Z.