WPR18LA006 · Nanchang China CJ 6 UNDESIGNAT
Nanchang China CJ 6 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA006
- 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
Nanchang China CJ 6 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Nanchang China CJ-6
- 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
- N8NW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1992)
- 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 (partial)
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger onboard the experimental airplane were descending toward the destination at the conclusion of a cross-county flight when the engine rpm began to vary and the engine eventually lost power. The pilot initiated a forced landing to a clearing at a nearby construction site, during which the left wing impacted an obstacle, resulting in substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the fuel pump’s diaphragm, located on the drive shaft, was ruptured. The diaphragm was designed to prevent fuel system contamination. Remnants of the diaphragm were observed on the accessory side of the pump and the diaphragm was located inward from its original position on the drive shaft. It is likely that this ruptured diaphragm caused the fuel system to be contaminated with air and or oil and resulted in the loss of power to the engine. No other mechanical anomalies were revealed that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The failure of the fuel pump’s diaphragm which resulted in fuel system contamination from air and or oil and caused the engine to lose power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA006
- Event ID
- 20171009X04506
- Case number
- WPR18LA006
- 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, cause areas. 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: 45882d4e739260150a7b0cf088e5d9022003366a29ef0e65aff8dd01172df72f; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:55:20.371Z.