LAX08CA033 · Senft/Anderson/salmon C-5
Senft/Anderson/salmon C-5 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA033
- 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
Senft/Anderson/salmon C-5
- Aircraft type
- Senft/anderson/salmon C-5
- 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
- N700H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ), Marana, AZTo 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
- 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 › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the pilot heard several "pops" with no drops in oil pressure or temperature noted on the gauges. The engine then seized and the propeller stopped turning. When the pilot realized that she was not going to make her destination airport, she began to look for a place to land. Her options were limited by cars and power lines. She eventually was able to locate a road that was flat with no cars or power lines; however, there was natural desert vegetation. After touchdown the left wing struck a tree and the airplane ground looped. The pilot stated that the airplane was a homebuilt replica with a 1929 Wright Whirlwind R540A engine. The engine was inspected and a large hole on the right side of the engine case was found. Investigators also noted that the damage to the other cylinders and connecting rods appear to have been caused when the number 3 articulating rod separated and began running around inside the engine. The engine seized when the number 3 articulating rod bent the number 4 articulating rod and then moved into the bottom of the number 5 cylinder, forcing itself between the bottom of the piston and the master rod. The underlying cause of the number 3 articulating rod's separation was not able to be determined.
Probable cause
a total loss of engine power due to the failure of the number 3 articulating rod.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA033
- Event ID
- 20080118X00077
- Case number
- LAX08CA033
- 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: 1bc4f811b29cc19b0e0ffb120e67d2f980974210ce57881bae6870a0ff0405ed; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:21:02.158Z.