CEN11IA146 · Columbia LC41 550FG
Columbia LC41 550FG · Incident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Bourland Field (50F) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11IA146
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Columbia LC41 550FG
- Aircraft type
- Columbia LC41
- 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
- N921DZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bourland Field (50F), Cresson, TXTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- 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 · climb to 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 (partial)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was climbing through about 9,000 feet mean sea level (msl) when the pilot noticed that the engine was not producing full power and that the engine oil pressure had dropped. The pilot declared an emergency and asked an air traffic controller for a descent and vectors for an instrument approach to a nearby airport. While descending through about 3,000 feet msl in instrument meteorological conditions, the “engine quit.” The airplane descended out of the clouds about 500 feet above ground level, the pilot made an engine-out landing in an open field, and the nose gear collapsed. A review of the airplane’s maintenance documents showed that the engine had recently been partially removed during replacement of the starter adapter. According to the airplane’s maintenance logbooks, the airplane was inspected after this maintenance activity, and a subsequent ground run of the engine was satisfactory, with no leaks noted. Further, the pilot reported that after the maintenance was completed, he flew the airplane twice and had no leaks and no problems. A postaccident teardown examination of the engine revealed a breach in the crankcase and several areas inside the engine that exhibited lubrication distress, thermal distress, and mechanical damage. The examination revealed no other preincident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The reason for the in-flight loss of engine oil could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power in flight due to a loss of engine oil for reasons that could not be determined during a postaccident teardown examination of the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11IA146
- Event ID
- 20110107X51155
- Case number
- CEN11IA146
- 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. 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: 39b10760037c7ec37bedd736746e2574deeaec261fa4f34226125e1aab3c0430; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:40:32.544Z.