CHI01LA194 · Houston Challenger II
Houston Challenger II · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Sedalia, MO (private airstrip) to Sedalia Memorial Airport (DMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA194
- 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
Houston Challenger II
- Aircraft type
- Houston CHALLENGER
- 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
- N902GH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sedalia, MO (private airstrip)To Sedalia Memorial Airport (DMO), Sedalia, MO
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two seat experimental amateur-built airplane was destroyed when it impacted trees located near the southwest perimeter fence about 900 feet west of the approach end of runway 5. The aircraft wreckage pattern was oriented to the southwest. A witness reported that the airplane "ran like new" when it departed. Witnesses near the airport reported seeing the airplane flying low, heading north, and then making a wide right turn to the southwest before impacting the trees. One witness said the engine sputtered twice before impacting the trees. Another witness said he heard the engine quit and saw the propeller stop. He reported the engine started again and the airplane turned back toward the airport before crashing into the trees. The pilot had a total of 100 flight hours. A witness reported the pilot had purchased the airplane within the last year and had flown it about 2 hours, but not at all within the last 3 or 4 months. The airplane did not have a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) registered "N" number painted on the airplane. No data plate or serial number was found on the airplane. According to FAA records, an Airworthiness Certificate was never issued for the accident airplane. A witness reported he had flown the airplane and that it had a severe yaw problem and he was afraid to fly in it again. He reported the pilot fabricated and installed "stab fins" on the tip of each horizontal stabilizer, and a large trim tab on the rudder. The witness also stated the pilot removed the doors to the airplane because he had been told it would help eliminate the yaw problem. The witness reported the accident flight was the first flight the pilot had taken with the doors removed. An examination of the airplane revealed no preexisting anomalies.
Probable cause
the unsuitable terrain encountered during the forced landing. Additional factors were the pilot's lack of experience in the type of airplane, the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA194
- Event ID
- 20010705X01310
- Case number
- CHI01LA194
- 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: cf1cf864752cf36ea8dc1caa0d5aa9c8b5cd5505c8bd9d62726601460b8acd2f; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:28:49.305Z.