CEN20LA412 · Zenith CH 750
Zenith CH 750 · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure en route
From Clinton Memorial Airport (GLY) to Pearce Field (0KS8)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA412
- 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
- N210WP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clinton Memorial Airport (GLY), Clinton, MOTo Pearce Field (0KS8), Parsons, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2014)
- 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
- Electrical system 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the experimental, amateur-built airplane was en route to the destination airport when the engine momentarily lost power. The pilot immediately selected the alternate fuel pump and engine control unit (ECU), and the engine regained power. About 5 minutes later, the engine lost total power, and the pilot attempted to restart the engine. The engine restart was unsuccessful, and the pilot performed a forced landing to a field, during which the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing and rudder.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the main fuse block was discolored and exhibited internal thermal damage. An automotive blade-type fuse that connected to both primary and secondary fuel pumps and primary and backup ECUs displayed arcing signatures and had failed. According to the engine manufacturer, the primary and secondary ECUs should have been wired directly to the main bus and should not have contained a fuse. The improper installation of the airplane’s electrical system resulted in an overloaded electrical system for the installed fuse. After bypassing the failed electrical system, an engine test run was performed. The engine started and operated normally with no mechanical issues noted.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to an electrical overload in the engine control unit wiring system; the electrical overload occurred as a result of improper installation by the airplane builder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA412
- Event ID
- 20200922X85131
- Case number
- CEN20LA412
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 2dba47c976fb358fbe2bcc13dbc40e480bbbb7f116557f7d5270f47381fdb71c; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:06:08.052Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The identifier 0KS8 is a Kansas landing facility and Parsons is a city in Kansas; the recorded state MO is wrong.