WPR19FA026 · Zenith CH601 XL
Zenith CH601 XL · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Lake Havasu City Airport (HII) to Mogollon Airpark (AZ82)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19FA026
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Zenith CH601 XL
- Aircraft type
- Zenith CH601
- 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
- N322JL
- Operator
- Lynch Jay A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Havasu City Airport (HII), Lake Havasu City, AZTo Mogollon Airpark (AZ82), Overgaard, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2011)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and pilot-rated passenger were completing the second leg of a multileg flight. Flight data indicated that the final approach was below the glideslope for the runway and the airplane’s airspeed was above the stall limit. During the approach, the airplane impacted a tall tree about 1,500 ft from the runway threshold, the roof of a house, and a second tree before coming to rest in a taxi area between houses. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Although the pilot should have been familiar with the runway characteristics given that he had a hangar near the airpark and had flown into the airpark before, it is likely that the upsloping runway and paved surfaces before the displaced threshold gave the pilot the visual illusion that the airplane was at a higher altitude than it actually was and that the pilot thus flew a lower approach. Although a visual approach path indicator was positioned left of the runway threshold, the pilot likely did not monitor the indicator during the final approach.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to monitor the airport’s visual approach path indicator during the final approach to the upsloping runway, which resulted in a low approach path and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19FA026
- Event ID
- 20181116X04602
- Case number
- WPR19FA026
- 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: f3d6fc5ceda524ca5a8b2b8874f4b1a2505c4e58cc48145d163cbd6c0909dd28; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:50:56.784Z.