LAX03LA164 · Cessna T207A
Cessna T207A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Page Municipal Airport (PGA) to Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA164
- 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 T207A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N9317M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Municipal Airport (PGA), Page, AZTo Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN), Grand Canyon, 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
- 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, bearing › Shifted
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot executed a forced landing after the airplane experienced a catastrophic engine failure. Approximately 20 minutes after takeoff, the engine started to violently shake. The pilot retarded the throttle to 15 inches of manifold pressure and reduced the rpm to 2300. White smoke was emitted from the top portion of the cowling and a small amount of smoke entered the cockpit. Also, a large amount of "very black" oil came from the front of the cowling. The pilot turned the airplane in the direction of the nearest airport. About 2 minutes later, the engine stopped completely. He turned a base leg for the highway below. While on final, the airplane was overtaking vehicles on the road so he elected to deviate to the side of the highway. During the landing roll, the nose gear was torn off. After securing the airplane, the pilot noted two large holes on the top, aft portion of the engine casing. Pieces of casing and piston were on and around the engine. A piston rod was located on top of the engine, and a third hole was located at the bottom of the engine casing. Disassembly of the engine revealed that the number 2 cylinder main bearing rotated and closed off the oil supply to the bearing. It had been 1464.5 hours since the engine's last overhaul. According to the engine manufacturer, the time between overhauls for this engine is 1,600 operating hours. An oil analysis on December 7, 2001, indicated that the wear metals appeared high for the oil time.
This narrative was modified on February 16, 2005.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power due to a oil starvation induced catastrophic internal failure of the engine caused by the rotation of the number 2 cylinder main bearing.
This narrative was modified on February 16, 2005.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA164
- Event ID
- 20030530X00744
- Case number
- LAX03LA164
- 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: 552221facc9b27c1ee3532c5e4b708ccec2bd66c8d46a2d8fa540f3ad79720e6; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:15:31.537Z.