CEN20LA364 · Grumman G164 B
McClung Aerial Spraying Grumman G164 B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Ogallala Municipal Airport Searle Field (OGA) to Ogallala Municipal Airport Searle Field (OGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA364
- 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
Grumman G164 B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G164
- 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
- N2437D
- Operator
- Mcclung Aerial Spraying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogallala Municipal Airport Searle Field (OGA), Ogallala, NETo Ogallala Municipal Airport Searle Field (OGA), Ogallala, NE
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1984)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, the pilot of an agricultural airplane experienced a total loss of engine power. Unable to restore engine power, the pilot made an emergency landing in a cornfield, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane.
The engine was removed from the airframe and an engine examination revealed small bits of metal in the oil filter element and that the engine was seized. The top cylinder was removed, the cylinder’s connecting rod was broken, and metal fragments were noted inside the engine. A bottom cylinder was then removed, and a broken section of the master connecting rod was retrieved. Metallurgical examination determined that the connecting rod separated due to overstress fracture, with no indication of pre-existing cracking.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a failure of the master connecting rod.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA364
- Event ID
- 20200825X13853
- Case number
- CEN20LA364
- 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. 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: 7a0ae7a66566f47b4de507993d99dbb53b2986810132e639758e0e307584ea54; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:55:50.153Z.