CEN12LA127 · Fleet FLEET 16B
Fleet FLEET 16B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From 1T · Marion, TX to Zuehl Airport (1TE4)
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
- CEN12LA127
- 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
- 0
- 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
Fleet FLEET 16B
- Aircraft type
- Fleet 16
- 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
- N9753L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From 1T · Marion, TXTo Zuehl Airport (1TE4), Marion, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the local flight, the airplane’s engine began to surge and then experienced a total loss of power. The pilot attempted a forced landing in a nearby field. However, during the forced landing, the airplane impacted a tree and subsequently came to rest inverted. The pilot reported that when he drained the fuel tank after the accident he found a piece of welding slag in the fuel line, which blocked the flow of fuel to the engine.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of a piece of metal in the fuel line, which blocked fuel flow to the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA127
- Event ID
- 20120109X14110
- Case number
- CEN12LA127
- 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: 9085a0a0bcfb3ada55c0a713b9a24e47a899b72593ac96b3453d074bcbe34e20; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:03:07.645Z.