WPR20FA005 · Bede BD5 B
Bede BD5 B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Camarillo International Airport (CMA) to Camarillo International Airport (CMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20FA005
- 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
Bede BD5 B
- Aircraft type
- Bede BD5
- 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
- N501BD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CATo Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- Defining eventThe 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed in the experimental, amateur-built airplane and remained in the airport traffic pattern. The tower controller noticed that the airplane was low on the downwind leg and asked the pilot if he could climb. The pilot responded that he was having issues climbing and would need to stay at that altitude. The pilot also stated that he would need to make a full-stop landing. The pilot was cleared to land, and, shortly thereafter, the airplane was observed in a rapid descent.
Several witnesses located near the accident site reported that the airplane was low before it descended rapidly toward the ground. One witness stated that the propeller was not moving. The airplane impacted a lettuce field about 3/4 mile south of the airport and immediately nosed over. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the connecting rod bearing, and endcap had separated from the crankshaft. Engine disassembly revealed that the engine’s oil galleys and the No. 4 connecting rod journal’s oil galley were not obstructed. The section of the rod end cap with the bearing tang insert had mechanical damage consistent with bearing shift. The bearing shift likely led to the No. 4 rod bearing and endcaps to separate and resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The No. 4 connecting rod’s bearing shift and separation of the No. 4 connecting rod, which resulted in a total loss of engine power and subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20FA005
- Event ID
- 20191008X73025
- Case number
- WPR20FA005
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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, cause areas. 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: 6c2675277ea1cc8923fcda34e6ea579f97965f78ede4cd30970fe1a6946b6df0; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:06:46.775Z.