WPR11LA199 · Zenith CH-750
Zenith CH-750 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From French Valley Airport (F70) to French Valley Airport (F70)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA199
- 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
Zenith CH-750
- Aircraft type
- Zenith CH-750
- 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
- N632DR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From French Valley Airport (F70), Murieta, CATo French Valley Airport (F70), Murieta, CA
- 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 builder/owner/pilot of the kitplane had selected and installed a modified Chevrolet Corvair engine as the airplane's powerplant and was in the early stages of the test flight program. The engine had accumulated a total of about 3 flight hours before the accident flight, and the fuel quantity gauges were not yet operative. About 45 minutes into the flight, the engine experienced a complete loss of power during a reduced-power descent toward the home airport, and the pilot was unable to restart the engine. In the resulting off-airport forced landing, the airplane came to rest inverted. First responders observed that fuel was leaking from the tanks. Examination of the airplane and the ground underneath the airplane a few hours after the accident revealed only trace amounts of fuel. Residual fuel from the source used to fuel the airplane for the accident flight tested negative for both water and ethanol, and the fuel strainers were free of obstructions. About 1 month after the accident, the chief engine designer at the engine modification company examined and prepared the engine for a test run. The engine started and performed normally through various power settings. The designer concluded that the engine failure was due to fuel exhaustion. Total fuel capacity was about 24 gallons, and the pilot estimated that he departed on the flight with about 13 gallons. According to the designer, the engine would have consumed between about 7 and 11 gallons per hour between the cruise- and full-power settings.
The pilot stated that during the descent in which he experienced the engine failure, the engine rpm was no lower than 2,400 rpm; therefore, he did not use carburetor heat. Correlation of ambient temperature and dew point values indicated that the airplane was operating in a region that corresponded to "Serious Icing (Glide Power)," near the boundary of the region denoted as "Serious Icing (Cruise Power)." Available evidence was insufficient to conclusively determine whether the engine power loss was due to fuel exhaustion or carburetor icing.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during descent for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA199
- Event ID
- 20110414X73824
- Case number
- WPR11LA199
- 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: 3bc50d9318f25bd6c794e7eaaf1436ad9d6ea1d3a111a8f6d277026a0decee9d; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:03:46.155Z.