LAX05FA296 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05FA296
- 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
- 2 · 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 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N6565L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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)
- 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Engine assembly, piston › Worn
- Engine assembly, ring › Fractured
- Ignition system, spark plug › Worn
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Airspeed, not maintained
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 descended to ground impact while maneuvering to return to the runway following a partial loss of power in the takeoff initial climb. The airplane departed runway 25 right. About 30 seconds later, the pilot reported poor climb performance to the tower controller and requested to return to the airport. Ground witnesses, including pilots at the airport, said the airplane was low and appeared to be slower than normal. The engine maintained a constant low rpm (revolutions per minute) sound; it was not coughing, sputtering, or backfiring. The nose was up, the wings were rocking, and the tail was moving back and forth. The airplane stalled, the right wing dropped about 90 degrees, and the nose went nearly straight down. The airplane came to rest behind a building. Total time recorded on the engine at the last 100-hour inspection was 2,762.5 hours, and it had not been overhauled. Work performed included an oil and oil filter change, a check of the exhaust system, gapping of the spark plugs, a check for compliance with airworthiness directives, and a notation that compression was 70/80 or better. The manufacturer's recommended time between overhauls is 2,400 hours. Engine examination determined that only one top spark plug appeared to be within service limits. Disassembly of the engine revealed broken rings on two pistons. One piston had a scarf gap that allowed combustion blow-by (blow torching) to consume piston material. False brinnelling was extensive on the face of the cylinder number 1 exhaust camshaft follower and the cylinder number 3 exhaust lobe of the camshaft. All of the internal engine components displayed signatures that were consistent with an over extended service life. The ignition switch was in the right position. It could not be determined if the pilots left the switch in the right position after the before takeoff magneto check, or intentionally selected the right position while troubleshooting the lack of power in flight.
Probable cause
the certified flight instructor's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed resulting in a stall and loss of control. Also causal was the engine's loss of partial power due to inadequate maintenance, worn spark plugs, worn pistons, and broken piston rings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05FA296
- Event ID
- 20050915X01465
- Case number
- LAX05FA296
- 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: 383191963c2bdb4920a897e9d97ee7fbd999cc0ea46490e1eb8ffcf04d05da8a; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:53:41.734Z.