CHI01LA019 · Zenair CH2000
Zenair CH2000 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA019
- 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
- 0
- 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
Zenair CH2000
- Aircraft type
- Zenair CH2000
- 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
- N420ZA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI)To 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Carburetor heat control, cable/push-pull rod › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not available
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was substantially damaged when it struck a gate and a fence during a forced landing after takeoff. The pilot said that at about 450 feet agl, "...the engine started to run very erratic with an appreciable loss of thrust...." He said that the engine was not producing enough thrust to maintain level flight. A forced landing was attempted on an airport road. No mechanical malfunction was listed in the pilot's written report. The aircraft engine was examined and the nut that secures the carburetor heat control cable housing was found loose. According to the inspectors report, "... full travel of the carburetor heat valve could not be achieved." A postaccident engine run was conducted and the engine ran at idle power with "slight roughness". Engine speed was increased to 1700 rpm and a magneto check performed with the right magneto showing about a 150-rpm drop, and the left showing about a 125-rpm drop. The engine produced 2400 static rpm at full throttle. The weather report listed the temperature and dew point as 13 degrees Celsius and 11 degrees Celsius respectively. According to the Carburetor Icing chart from Transport Canada, this temperature and dew point are in the range for serious icing potential at all power settings.
Probable cause
the loose carburetor heat control clamp bolt and carburetor heat not available to the pilot. Factors were the low altitude, the carburetor icing conditions, the fence and the security gate.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA019
- Event ID
- 20001212X22126
- Case number
- CHI01LA019
- 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. 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: 2787016c3a4423a7730944f6c04941898847034f892efa8f8a4eb6cf627de45d; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:22:00.772Z.