LAX02LA292 · Cessna 172RG
Cessna 172RG · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA292
- 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 172RG
- 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
- N6303V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, 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
- 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 cap › Separation
- Lubricating system, oil line › Leak
- Pilot of a previous flight › Information, not issued
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 made an off airport forced landing following a loss of engine power. The pilot reported that approximately 20 minutes after takeoff, the engine stopped, and he made a forced landing in a dirt field. During the landing roll, the nose wheel fell into a culvert, which resulted in substantial damage to airframe structural members. The previous night, another pilot reported an "rpm bump" to maintenance personnel. They discovered a leak in the oil cooler return line and it was repaired. It was later determined that the rpm topped out at over 3,000 rpm, which requires engine disassembly and inspection in accordance with the applicable overhaul manual by Textron Lycoming Service Bulletin (SB) 3691. The SB defines an overspeed as an increase of no more than 10 percent of rated engine rpm for a period not exceeding 3 seconds. In Chart 11 of SB 3691, the engine overspeed described was greater than 10 percent, which requires engine disassembly and inspection in accordance with the applicable overhaul manual. The maximum rated speed on the engine was 2,970 rpm. The rod cap separated from the rod on the number 3 cylinder. Pieces of metal were throughout the interior of the engine.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to failure of the number three connecting rod cap. Also causal was the failure of the pilot of a previous flight to report an engine overspeed event precluding the performance of the appropriate maintenance inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA292
- Event ID
- 20020927X05233
- Case number
- LAX02LA292
- 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: 0df9b8f6035f162693926d7e7bc4acaa4e34cc08bc5bc9160d4e4269e415f7a7; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:12:21.609Z.