ERA18TA263 · Zenith CH 750
Zenith CH 750 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED) to Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18TA263
- 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
- N752VK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED), DeLand, FLTo Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED), DeLand, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2012)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot/owner of the experimental, amateur-built airplane reported that, about 15 minutes into the local flight, the engine started "skipping" before completely losing power. He then set up for a forced landing to an open area. During the descent, he maneuvered to clear power lines. The airplane touched down at a steep descent angle, nosed over, and came to rest inverted, which resulted in substantial damage to the airframe.
The airplane's engine used an electronic control unit instead of magnetos and required at least one of the airplane's two onboard batteries to provide electrical energy to the ignition system for the engine to operate. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that both of its batteries were discharged. After the batteries were charged, the engine was started and ran normally. The alternator also charged the batteries normally. The cockpit instrument panel switch that enabled the alternator to supply energy to the airplane's electrical system, and thus charge the airplane's batteries, was unlabeled. When the switch was placed in the unlabeled on position, the alternator field wire received power and the alternator charged normally. The pilot reported that he may have inadvertently left it in the off position during the flight. With the switch in this position, the engine would have continued to run until the selected battery lost its charge. The pilot also reported that he did not use a checklist when operating the airplane. It is likely that the pilot failed to activate the airplane's alternator, which resulted in a discharge of the selected battery during the 15-minute flight. The subsequent loss of electrical power eventually resulted in the total loss of engine power.
Additionally, the airplane was not equipped with an alternator warning light as recommended by the engine manufacturer. Had the airplane been equipped with such a light, the pilot might have realized that he had failed to turn the alternator on and that it was not providing energy to the electrical system to sustain the charge of the selected battery.
Probable cause
The pilot's operation of the airplane with the alternator switch in the off position, which allowed the selected battery to discharge and resulted in an ignition system failure and a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18TA263
- Event ID
- 20180923X81013
- Case number
- ERA18TA263
- 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: 00bc9b665f14fa2ea8a1af50f0630142a19d472bc69c9e1e9ff76e92da8ad03e; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:16:03.055Z.