CEN17FA288 · Zenith CH701SP
Zenith CH701SP · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Mexico Memorial Airport (KMYJ) to Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17FA288
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Zenith CH701SP
- Aircraft type
- Zenith CH701
- 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
- N701XL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mexico Memorial Airport (KMYJ), Mexico, MOTo Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH), Oshkosh, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2003)
- 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
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Although he had no night or instrument flight experience, the sport pilot departed in a non-instrument-certificated light sport airplane at night with an overcast ceiling and thunderstorms in the area. Radar data showed that the airplane proceeded on course for about 9 minutes and then entered a right descending turn that continued to ground impact, which was consistent with the pilot attempting to return to the departure airport and not paying attention to his altitude. Examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane struck open level farm land in a right wing-low, nose-low attitude. Examination of the engine and airframe did not reveal any evidence of preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot continued visual flight into an area of instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in the pilot experiencing a loss of visual reference and subsequent spatial disorientation.
The pilot had a history of chronic insomnia treated with temazepam, a sedating benzodiazepine, and was regularly prescribed hydrocodone, an opioid analgesic. Toxicology testing detected these drugs and their metabolites in the pilot's system. The pilot was likely impaired by effects from his use of temazepam, and the impairing effects of temazepam were likely enhanced by the pilot's use of hydrocodone. It is likely that the pilot's decision-making was degraded due to his combined use of temazepam and hydrocodone.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to take off at night and continue visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions. which resulted in the pilot becoming spatially disoriented and losing control of the airplane. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's degraded decision-making due to his use of a combination of impairing prescription drugs, and the pilot's lack of instrument and night flight experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17FA288
- Event ID
- 20170728X94241
- Case number
- CEN17FA288
- 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: a921e628e05d39b9de3e9aefd9643cb4a755967702f28af09826bd50598c068b; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:10:51.496Z.