CEN09CA391 · Shultz Jeffrey D SONEX
Shultz Jeffrey D SONEX · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Athens Municipal Airport (F44) to Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport (KMEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA391
- 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
Shultz Jeffrey D SONEX
- Aircraft type
- Shultz Jeffrey SONEX
- 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
- N604X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Athens Municipal Airport (F44), Athens, TXTo Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport (KMEZ), Mena, 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 · descent
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot established a descent from a cruise altitude of 8,500 feet for an approach and landing to refuel on the second leg of a cross-country flight. At an altitude of about 5,000 feet, the engine stopped producing power. The pilot attempted to restore power by adjusting the throttle, mixture, and magnetos. The engine lost power completely. The pilot then attempted a restart and was unsuccessful. A forced landing was made to an open field between two rows of houses. During the landing roll, the airplane's wings hit a stop sign and several trees. According to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector on scene, the engine had compression, turned over by hand, and showed no outward signs of failure. No reason could be determined for the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA391
- Event ID
- 20090626X20332
- Case number
- CEN09CA391
- 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 2009-06-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3d8d0287c7e82127a95b24d8130d2dced745d8743abd44c001f1d2f17d9c81da; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:37:06.974Z.