DEN01LA059 · Meshko Zenair CH-701
Meshko Zenair CH-701 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY) to 48V · Erie, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01LA059
- 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
Meshko Zenair CH-701
- Aircraft type
- Meshko Zenair CH-701
- 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
- N4386W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, COTo 48V · Erie, CO
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Miscellaneous, engine pre-ignition and/or detonation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had just taken off and was climbing at 80 percent power (5,000 rpm) when he noticed the EGT rising "into redline 1,625 degrees F." He leveled off, reduced power to 4,800 rpm, and reduced propeller pitch. EGT stopped rising and came down slightly, but was still above redline. All other engine indications were normal. EGT continued to rise and the engine started losing power and was "running rough." The pilot tried to land at a nearby airport, but was forced to make a landing in an open field. He said he flared at the the last moment and hit the ground sharply. The nose wheel broke off when it struck a tire track and the airplane nosed over. The pilot, who also built the airplane, suspected detonation caused the rise in EGT.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power as a result of detonation. A contributing factor was the unsuitable terrain on which to make a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01LA059
- Event ID
- 20010309X00573
- Case number
- DEN01LA059
- 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: 080e6ffa6589256e5748b9da7459a85487c7775ba13fe853140f478d8d549c0c; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:12:17.587Z.