CEN11LA005 · Maule MXT-7-180A
Henderson State University Maule MXT-7-180A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV) to M89 · Arkadelphia, AR
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA005
- 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
Maule MXT-7-180A
- Aircraft type
- Maule MXT-7
- 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
- N152HS
- Operator
- Henderson State University
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV), Shreveport, LATo M89 · Arkadelphia, 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
- 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
The pilot was on a night cross-country flight when he heard a knocking sound in the engine. He immediately proceeded toward the nearest airport, declared an emergency, and noted that the oil pressure gauge read "0" and the oil temperature gauge read "high." When the airplane was about 5 miles south of the airport, and at an altitude of 1,700 feet, the engine seized. The pilot made a forced landing to a field and subsequently collided with a fence, causing substantial damage to the airplane. Examination of the engine revealed a large hole in the top of the crankcase and that the oil drain line for the No. 4 cylinder was not connected. A review of the engine logbook indicated that the No. 2 cylinder had been removed on the day of the accident, which would have required the No. 4 cylinder oil drain line to be disconnected. When the cylinder was placed back on the engine, the oil drain line was likely not reconnected and properly torqued per the manufacturer's maintenance manual.
Probable cause
The mechanic's failure to properly install an oil drain line after he replaced a cylinder, which caused the engine to seize in flight due to a lack of lubrication.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA005
- Event ID
- 20101004X53928
- Case number
- CEN11LA005
- 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 2010-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4a99ff46e5fc09d00f5365887190ef10829dde17988f05eecb15ed0dc6942dbc; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:27:09.179Z.