CHI04LA128 · North American P-51C
North American P-51C · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From Red Wing Regional Airport (RGK) to Red Wing Regional Airport (RGK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA128
- 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
- 1 · 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
North American P-51C
- Aircraft type
- North American P-51
- 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
- N61429
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Red Wing Regional Airport (RGK), Red Wing, MNTo Red Wing Regional Airport (RGK), Red Wing, MN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Disengaged
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
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 collided with trees and terrain following a loss of engine power while maneuvering during an airshow. Witnesses reported hearing the pilot state that he had an engine malfunction as he was lining up for a low pass over the airport. They stated the propeller was turning, but the airplane was descending. The airplane passed under high tension power lines and collided with trees prior to coming to rest in the back yard of a residence. Examination of the engine revealed the upper vertical camshaft drive gear had backed off of the drive shaft. The camshaft gear fits on splines on the upper vertical drive shaft followed by a tab washer, a retainer washer, and a retaining nut. The retainer washer has two interior tabs that insert into smaller splines at the top of the shaft, which keep it from rotating. On the outer diameter surface, the retainer washer contains slots where tabs from the tab washer can be bent into place. A metallurgical examination of the gearbox cover, retaining nut, retaining washer, tab washer, and the camshaft drive gear revealed the components were installed in the correct order. The damage on the components indicates that the tabs on the tab washer were most likely not bent into place around the retaining washer and nut, allowing the nut to back off the shaft. It could not be determined if the nut had been properly torqued during its installation. The engine had been overhauled approximately 424 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the camshaft drive gear assembly which resulted in the retaining nut backing off allowing the drive gear to move up the shaft. A factor associated with the accident was the low altitude at which the power loss occurred and the trees which the airplane contacted during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA128
- Event ID
- 20040602X00716
- Case number
- CHI04LA128
- 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: 48932fb0c7212444bcf4d880bde0d35658c130abd70738926a635107e97ecef7; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:27:56.185Z.