CEN11LA669 · Owen VANS RV-10
Veracity Aviation Owen VANS RV-10 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB) to Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA669
- 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
Owen VANS RV-10
- Aircraft type
- Owen VANS RV-10
- 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
- N499RV
- Operator
- Veracity Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB), Parkersburg, WVTo Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB), Parkersburg, WV
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2011)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After completing basic flight maneuvers in the experimental amateur-built airplane, the pilot decided to return to the departure airport. During cruise descent, he heard a loud bang from the engine compartment, and oil began covering the windscreen. The pilot-rated passenger reported that there was a sudden "explosion" from the engine compartment that sounded similar to a "12 gauge double barrel shotgun." The pilot relinquished control to the pilot-rated passenger, who had more experience in the accident airplane, and he subsequently made a forced landing to a nearby wooded area.
A postaccident engine examination revealed significant heat and fire damage concentrated at the aft right side of the engine near the No. 5 engine cylinder. The fuel nozzle for the No. 5 engine cylinder was found disconnected from its corresponding cylinder head. The fuel injector line remained connected to the fuel nozzle, but the threaded portion of the fuel nozzle was not engaged to the cylinder head and could be lifted away from the cylinder head by hand. Further disassembly of the engine revealed that no internal component failures or mechanical anomalies occurred. The experimental engine, which had been modified from the original engine manufacturer's design specifications, had been field-overhauled about 20 hours before the accident flight. It is likely that the disengaged fuel nozzle for the No. 5 engine cylinder allowed fuel to be introduced directly into the engine compartment and resulted in the in-flight engine fire/explosion when the fuel was ignited by hot engine exhaust and caused the heat and fire damage near the No. 5 engine cylinder. Additionally, the No. 5 engine cylinder would not have developed proper compression without the fuel injector nozzle engaged in the cylinder head. A postaccident review of the maintenance records found no history of unresolved airworthiness issues or any maintenance performed on the fuel injection system since the engine overhaul.
Probable cause
The in-flight engine fire and loss of engine power due to an improperly installed fuel injector nozzle during a recent engine overhaul.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA669
- Event ID
- 20110928X25902
- Case number
- CEN11LA669
- 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: 740b16ef0e571f49debd74286022bdef6e1dfa6304f2175308933b3704a0077d; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:47:20.878Z.