CEN10CA172 · Kinney Kevin ZENITH 601XL
Kinney Kevin ZENITH 601XL · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Warren County Airport/John Lane Field (I68) to Warren County Airport/John Lane Field (I68)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location, departure or destination and damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA172
- 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
Kinney Kevin ZENITH 601XL
- Aircraft type
- Kinney Kevin 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
- N61601
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Warren County Airport/John Lane Field (I68), Lebanon, OHTo Warren County Airport/John Lane Field (I68), Lebanon-Warren, OH
- 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
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 reported that the purpose of the flight was to conduct flight testing of the amateur-built experimental airplane. The pilot was also the owner/builder. He stated that while conducting some clearing turns in preparation for slow flight testing, he observed an oil pressure warning on the engine monitor. The indicated oil pressure was zero. He immediately turned toward the airport and reduced engine power to idle. About 60 seconds after the oil pressure warning, the engine lost power completely. The pilot established best glide airspeed and set up for a forced landing. He noted that he overshot the first field he had selected, but then settled on a second field. The airplane clipped two sets of trees during the approach and struck a wire fence during the landing. The pilot estimated that the airplane slid 20 feet after touching down. A postaccident inspection revealed a failure of an oil hose. Specifically, the return hose from the oil cooler had a 1-inch longitudinal split at a bend in the line. The pilot commented that he might not have properly accounted for the compound S-bend at that location on installation. The airplane had accumulated about 5.4 hours at the time of the accident. The airplane received damage to the firewall and fuselage.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the failure of an oil hose due to improper installation of the hose.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA172
- Event ID
- 20100323X40305
- Case number
- CEN10CA172
- 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: 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: 03582234808aab142dc9f5e65627c23fb4de6ae7014e511056241b6e04c21d37; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:47:04.050Z.