DFW07LA144 · Frew Zodiac 601XL
Frew Zodiac 601XL · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Merkel Field Sylacauga Municipal Airport (SCD) to Thompson-Robbins Airport (HEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07LA144
- 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
Frew Zodiac 601XL
- Aircraft type
- Frew ZODIAC 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
- N20370
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merkel Field Sylacauga Municipal Airport (SCD), Sylacauga, ALTo Thompson-Robbins Airport (HEE), Helena, AR
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 250-hour private pilot was on a 234-mile cross-country flight when the engine of his recently purchased experimental airplane lost power. The pilot attempted to restore engine power, but was not successful. During the forced landing, the airplane collided with trees on the crest of a hill and slid to the ground. The pilot was unable to egress from the airplane until rescuers found him 2 days after the accident. The pilot reported that he purchased the airplane the day prior to the accident flight, and had test flown the airplane for 0.7 hours. The pilot operated the aircraft's engine at "full throttle" during the test flight. The pilot calculated a fuel consumption of 6 gallons per hour at full power and planned the cross-country flight accordingly. A review of a engine operator's manual showed a fuel consumption rate of 6 gallons per hour at about the 66% rated power setting. Per the manual and at full throttle, the engine could have consumed as much as 10.6 gallons per hour. A post-accident inspection of the engine and airframe was conducted. The airplane fuel tanks were ruptured and no fuel was found in the fuel lines and no fuel stains were found on the aircraft's exterior. The total fuel capacity of the airplane was established at 24 gallons. All components of the engine were inspected and no discrepancies were noted. According to the airplane's "Hobbs" meter, the airframe had accumulated a total of 12.9 hours. The reason for the reported loss of engine power was not determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07LA144
- Event ID
- 20070626X00807
- Case number
- DFW07LA144
- 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: f5ae311eb45a88e92da7220092f1c5d5a1ee6d3989f2ce8a14baa847946beec1; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:47:47.568Z.