CHI02FA033 · Zenair CH2000
Zenair CH2000 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Creve Coeur Airport (1H0) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA033
- 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
- 2 · 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
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
- N33ZA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Creve Coeur Airport (1H0), Saint Louis, MOTo 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
- 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
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was destroyed when it impacted the side of a ravine during a forced landing following a loss of engine power at night. Witnesses described the airplane in a steep descent angle prior to impacting the ground. One witness reported seeing the airplane flying in a westerly direction. The witness said that she, "... thought it was strange because there was no engine noise at all." She further stated that the airplane, "...was going steady and all of a sudden the plane just fell out of the sky. There was no gradual [descent] it just fell." Another witness reported that the airplane was at a low altitude with the engine "sputtering". The witness reported that just prior to impact he heard the airplane, "...go to full power." The pilot had accumulated 6.6 hours of flight time since receiving his private pilot certificate on August 27, 2001. The pilot purchased the airplane on November 9, 2001. Witness statements indicate that the pilot flew the airplane on November 11, 2001, and the airplane was fully fueled prior to that flight. No records of subsequent fueling of the airplane were found. A witness reported that, prior to the accident flight, he assisted the pilot in starting the engine because the airplane master switch had been left on. The witness reported that he also performed a pre-flight inspection of the airplane and noted that the left fuel tank contained less than 1/4 tank of fuel, and the right fuel tank had 3/4 tank of fuel. He said that he positioned the selector valve for the left tank and informed the pilot. An "Airplane Log" recovered from the accident scene contains an entry for a 2.3 hour flight on November 11, 2001. The entry lists an ending tachometer reading of 738.70 hours. The recording tachometer reading at the accident site was 739.9 hours. The fuel selector was found positioned for the right fuel tank. The fuel hoses leading from the fuel tanks to the selector valve were cut during the investigation and any remaining liquid collected. About one ounce of a blue colored liquid was drained from the fuel hose leading from the right fuel tank to the selector valve. No liquid was found within the fuel hose leading from the left fuel tank to the selector valve. No other anomalies were found, with respect to the airplane, engine or systems, that were determined to exist prior to impact.
Probable cause
The improper selection of the fuel selector which resulted in fuel starvation and subsequent engine failure. Factors were the unsuitable terrain for the forced landing encountered by the pilot and the night light condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA033
- Event ID
- 20011123X02289
- Case number
- CHI02FA033
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-11-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9ca92b1925f903dbb4e0ca65a218002a25a78a308a26859a808670d6937daedb; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:17:29.491Z.