CEN17LA021 · Zenith CH-750
Zenith CH-750 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Morristown, MN (no airport) to Morristown, MN (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA021
- 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
- N8681
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morristown, MN (no airport)To Morristown, MN (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2015)
- 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
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that he had started, warmed up, and then shut down the engine about 1 hour before the accident flight. Shortly after takeoff for the personal flight, the airplane's engine lost total power. Subsequently, the pilot conducted a forced landing on a hill, which resulted in substantial damage to the nose landing gear, fuselage, and left wing.
The pilot said that he had fueled the airplane that morning with 82-octane automotive fuel that he had recently purchased from a service station. However, postaccident examination revealed that the fuel was yellow in color and smelled like "aged" automobile fuel. The top spark plugs appeared aged, and the electrodes were corroded, which could have affected engine performance. The airplane was not equipped with a fuel vapor return line to prevent fuel vapor lock. Given that old automotive fuel was found in the fuel system and that a fuel vapor return line had not been installed, it is likely that the engine lost power due to vapor lock. It is also likely that the corrosion of the spark plugs and the spacing of the electrode gaps contributed to the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel vapor lock. Contributing to the loss of engine power were the corrosion of the spark plugs and the spacing of the electrode gaps.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA021
- Event ID
- 20161020X84659
- Case number
- CEN17LA021
- 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: 63b0577d81628ebab2de1243f3a6bb28e5433d456a51e00fe05797a53bc143b5; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:45:09.385Z.