MIA03LA123 · Zenith 601HDS
Zenith 601HDS · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Naples Municipal Airport (APF) to Immokalee Regional Airport (IMM)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03LA123
- 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
Zenith 601HDS
- Aircraft type
- Zenith 601
- 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
- N601G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Naples Municipal Airport (APF), Naples, FLTo Immokalee Regional Airport (IMM), Immokalee, FL
- 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 · descent
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Ignition system, distributor › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner stated that he is the builder of the airplane, and was in cruise flight, at an altitude of 2,900 feet, operating on the flywheel-triggered ignition system, collecting performance data. He said he began a descent, and at 2,600 feet, about 5.6 miles from his destination, the engine suddenly ceased operating. He said he switched to the distributor ignition, observed normal fuel pressure and verified that there was adequate fuel in the header tank. He said he then communicated his emergency to air traffic control, and again attempted to restart the engine using the starter with both ignitions, but was unable to get the engine to start. He then made an approach to land in a field and during the landing rollout, the airplane flipped over due to the soft muddy soil, incurring substantial damage to the aircraft. The pilot/owner stated that after the accident he examined the airplane to determine the reason the engine had ceased to operate, and he found that the distributor rotor had failed due to excessive shaft clearance. He said that the excessive clearance had allowed the rotor to wobble in its rotation, and contact the pins within the cap, which had resulted in the metal contact at the top, separating from the plastic base.
Probable cause
Excessive rotor distributor shaft clearance that resulted in damage to the distributor rotor, a loss of ignition, the engine ceasing to operate. This resulted in a forced landing to unsuitable terrain and the airplane nosing over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03LA123
- Event ID
- 20030702X01004
- Case number
- MIA03LA123
- 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, coordinates. 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: 02867f72f17405039c7b1ea5f64389f866ecc4a4c644e2123768c0c597c31dab; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:27:00.511Z.