CEN11LA568 · Quad City CHALLENGER II CW
Quad City CHALLENGER II CW · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during initial climb
From Granbury Regional Airport (GDJ) to Granbury Regional Airport (GDJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA568
- 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
Quad City CHALLENGER II CW
- Aircraft type
- Quad City CHALLENGER
- 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
- N979JP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Granbury Regional Airport (GDJ), Granbury, TXTo Granbury Regional Airport (GDJ), Granbury, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 pilots noted a decrease in engine performance during the initial climb, and the airplane began to descend. The airplane subsequently stalled about 10 to 15 feet above ground level and impacted terrain. An examination of the airplane showed that plastic “Y” connectors in the fuel lines were cracked and leaking. The cracked and leaking connectors in the fuel lines would have caused decreased fuel flow to the engine and are consistent with the reported loss in engine performance. Postaccident examination revealed no other preimpact malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The leak in the plastic connectors in the fuel lines, which resulted in decreased engine power during the initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA568
- Event ID
- 20110815X11242
- Case number
- CEN11LA568
- 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: e56cb43de5d7f76330e5e5521c61538f53dd90a223f659bd81ba5536e6f8358a; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:36:33.617Z.