CEN09LA250 · Jordan DON R VANS RV-6A
Jordan DON R VANS RV-6A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY) to Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA250
- 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
Jordan DON R VANS RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Jordan Don VANS RV-6A
- 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
- N6DJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY), Arlington, TXTo Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY), Arlington, TX
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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 (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight, the single-engine airplane experienced a total loss of engine power. During the forced landing, the airplane's nose wheel dug into the ground and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest in an inverted position. An on-site examination revealed both wing fuel tanks contained a considerable amount of fuel. Continuity to the back of the engine was confirmed. The engine was equipped with two single (left and right) magnetos, with the left magneto having an impulse coupling. The magneto's "p-leads", were disconnected and the engine rotated by hand; electric "spark" was not observed at the ignition leads. Further examination of the magnetos disclosed that they had "open" [bad] coils; and therefore produced little, if any, ignition spark. The magnetos were manufactured in 1991, and there was no maintenance record of any overhaul/maintenance preformed on the magnetos. According to the manufacturer, the magneto's coil, points, condenser, and brushes are to inspected every 500 hours and the magneto must be overhauled when the engine is overhauled.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the failure of both magnetos. Contributing to the accident was the lack of preventative maintenance/inspection of the magnetos.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA250
- Event ID
- 20090416X83833
- Case number
- CEN09LA250
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2009-04-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 41dd2deca4566cde17484b4a4ee3b0b51e6a286346e1fe52d44ba3f60b9a5748; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:56:51.544Z.