CEN10LA131 · Lacour Long-EZE SR7-1
Lacour Long-EZE SR7-1 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From San Antonio International Airport (SAT) to McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA131
- 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
Lacour Long-EZE SR7-1
- Aircraft type
- Lacour LONG-EZE SR7-1
- 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
- N97EZ
- Operator
- Charles B. McDougal · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Antonio International Airport (SAT), San Antonio, TXTo McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE), McAllen, 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was in level cruise flight at 3,500 feet mean sea level when the engine suddenly vibrated then seized. The pilot made a "firm" forced landing on rolling brush and rock-strewn terrain. During the landing roll, the landing gear was sheared off and the canard wing was crushed. Engine disassembly revealed case fretting and main bearing movement. A representative of the engine manufacturer indicated that the failure mode was extremely rare, if not unique. The pilot had installed a Hertzler “Silver Bullet” composite propeller to the extended hub. According to the representative, it was possible that a harmonic vibration could have emanated from the propeller through the extended hub to the crankshaft. However, this propeller had not been tested to determine if there were amplified propeller harmonics to the crankshaft and the investigation was unable to determine that such vibration led to the engine failure.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to a failure of the crankshaft behind the No. 3 connecting rod journal for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA131
- Event ID
- 20100228X15957
- Case number
- CEN10LA131
- 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 2010-03-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f7a883fae54e74a6f4c73e781a82a7a2dfa8cf993a5309a8897e682488a35df4; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:42:35.902Z.