CHI03LA028 · Woods Velocity
Woods Velocity · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Ellsworth Municipal Airport (9K7) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA028
- 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
Woods Velocity
- Aircraft type
- Woods VELOCITY
- 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
- N241KW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellsworth Municipal Airport (9K7), Ellsworth, KSTo 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
- 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
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Fractured
- Fuel system, line › Vapor lock
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built airplane sustained substantial damage during a forced landing to a wheat field after a total loss of engine power. The accident flight was the 10th test flight of the airplane, and it had about 5 hours of total time. The pilot reported the takeoff and climb to 1,500 feet above ground level (agl) was normal. He reported that when he was in a subsequent climb the oil temperature started to go into the "yellow," but it stabilized when he increased airspeed and established a cruise power setting. After about five minutes, the oil temperature went into the yellow arc again and briefly reached red line, 230 degrees F. The pilot reduced power and the oil temperature went back into the green arc. The pilot reported that whenever he attempted to climb, the oil temperature would climb into the yellow arc. The pilot reported, "Within a few minutes the engine quit with no warning." The pilot executed a gear up forced landing. The inspection of the engine compartment revealed evidence of excessive heat around the fuel system and fuel line. The inspection revealed the exhaust was cracked/broken in two places. There was a 360 degree fracture at the rotor #1 engine flange separating the pipe from the engine, and a fracture where the two primary pipes merge to one in the augmenter. The inspection of the airframe and engine revealed no pre-existing anomalies. An engine run was conducted and the engine operated within normal operating parameters.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power while in cruise flight due to vapor lock of the fuel line as a result of the fractured exhaust manifold. A factor was the unsuitable terrain encountered during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA028
- Event ID
- 20021127X05539
- Case number
- CHI03LA028
- 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: c298f89a086c081b328a646a1ddf94f762994c24125052878f92883c8bbabc52; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:53:38.375Z.