LAX03LA059 · Farmer R B DA5-A
Farmer R B DA5-A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Apple Valley Airport (APV) to Yucca Valley Airport (L22)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA059
- 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
Farmer R B DA5-A
- Aircraft type
- Farmer DA5
- 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
- N7053U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apple Valley Airport (APV), Apple Valley, CATo Yucca Valley Airport (L22), Yucca Valley, 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
- 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, cylinder › Overtemperature
- Engine assembly, piston › Overtemperature
- Miscellaneous, engine pre-ignition and/or detonation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur built experimental airplane experienced a loss of engine power during cruise flight and collided with a berm during a forced landing. About 10 minutes after departure, with the airplane cruising about 1,000 feet above ground level (agl), the engine started running roughly. The engine rpm began to drop and the propeller eventually came to a stop. The pilot opted to land next to the highway in open desert. During the landing roll out the nose wheel impacted a berm and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest inverted. While examining the engine after the accident occurred, the pilot found that the number 1 and 3 cylinders showed evidence of detonation. He noted that the pistons were swollen, which he thought was a result of excessive heat from the detonation.
Probable cause
the detonation of the number 1 and 3 cylinders and the subsequent over temperature of those cylinders and their corresponding pistons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA059
- Event ID
- 20030107X00033
- Case number
- LAX03LA059
- 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: 1083ed918491e24bfebd9fcd446a693093cf8530a154eb50b31ab03849a454e6; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:32:10.375Z.