CEN19LA159 · Lancair LC41 550FG
Van Bortel Aircraft Lancair LC41 550FG · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY) to Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA159
- 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
Lancair LC41 550FG
- Aircraft type
- Lancair LC41
- 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
- N2514F
- Operator
- Van Bortel Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY), Arlington, TXTo Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY), Arlington, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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
- Organizational issues › Development
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a maintenance test flight in the airplane to break in an engine cylinder, which had just been replaced. During the flight, the pilot noticed an oil pressure warning light illuminate, followed by a low oil temperature indication. The pilot attempted to divert to a nearby airport; however, the engine experienced a total loss of power, and he conducted a forced landing, during which the wings sustained substantial damage. Examination of the airplane revealed a hole in the engine case above the No. 4 cylinder. Further examination revealed that the engine oil pressure switch had separated into two pieces . A detailed examination of the switch found that it had failed at a manufacturing swaged joint between its threaded section and cap piece. Therefore, it is likely that the swaging process was insufficient during manufacture. The broken switch allowed engine oil to escape the system, resulting in oil starvation and failure of the No. 4 cylinder.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to oil starvation as the result of the oil pressure switch failure due to a manufacturing defect.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA159
- Event ID
- 20190530X80613
- Case number
- CEN19LA159
- 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: f139ef6e35995c84295fdcb74cb471d972f5e142f92a1ca8a7467b2927eb1fdc; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:06:25.054Z.