CEN14LA495 · Nolin VANS RV-10
Nolin VANS RV-10 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Ellington Airport (EFD) to Ellington Airport (EFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA495
- 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
Nolin VANS RV-10
- Aircraft type
- Nolin 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
- N104HN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellington Airport (EFD), Houston, TXTo Ellington Airport (EFD), Houston, TX
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2014)
- 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that the accident occurred during the airplane's second flight after receiving an experimental airworthiness certificate. The purpose of the flight test was to complete basic flight maneuvers, verify and calibrate cockpit instrumentation, and perform several takeoffs and landings at a nearby airport. After the pilot completed several landings, the engine, while at an idle power setting, experienced a total loss of power during the landing roll. After several unsuccessful engine starts, attempted over a period of 15 to 20 minutes, the pilot was able to restart the engine and depart on the return flight to the departure airport. The airplane then experienced another total loss of engine power about 3 miles east of the intended destination. The airplane did not have sufficient altitude remaining to glide to the airport, and the pilot completed a forced landing to a nearby vacant field, during which the left main and nose landing gear collapsed.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of a malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal engine operation; however, postaccident damage to the electrical system prevented a complete evaluation of the ignition system.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA495
- Event ID
- 20140911X05500
- Case number
- CEN14LA495
- 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, coordinates. 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: bcc0df247200f6f57f4e15ec2183e16421421810593c426275ade0162446a948; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:44:41.618Z.