CEN20LA211 · Beech 23 A23A
Beech 23 A23A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT) to Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA211
- 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
Beech 23 A23A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N7941L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT), Cleburne, TXTo Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT), Cleburne, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1966)
- 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
- 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 private pilot departed on a local flight and had flown for “several” minutes when the oil pressure began decreasing. The pilot elected to return to the departure airport. As he continued on his return, the engine started “shaking” and subsequently stopped. He performed a forced landing on a curving gravel road and subsequently departed the road and impacted bushes and a tree, resulting in substantial damage to the airplane’s right wing.
A postimpact examination of the engine revealed the No. 1 cylinder head was separated and the piston exposed. Further examination revealed fatigue cracking through the cylinder wall. The failure initiation was a through-wall crack located on the exhaust side of the cylinder. A review of the airplane logbook revealed debris was found under the oil pressure relief valve seat 4 years prior to the accident, which “caused the oil pressure gage to read zero.” Further review showed that the oil pressure relief valve had been removed, cleaned, and reinstalled 8 months before the accident and that, 3 weeks prior to the accident, the oil pressure relief valve seat was honed, and a new plunger was installed. It is likely the separation of the No. 1 cylinder head was a result of metal fatigue, which in turn, resulted in the complete failure of the engine.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to metal fatigue failure of the No. 1 cylinder wall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA211
- Event ID
- 20200604X25126
- Case number
- CEN20LA211
- 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: 09e289b2a1be29bf1757d63f817928603163f6978d33542fc19c374768ddeada; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:45:47.296Z.