CEN21LA117 · Zenair Zodiac 601HDS
Zenair Zodiac 601HDS · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Skydive Houston Airport (37XA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA117
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Zenair Zodiac 601HDS
- Aircraft type
- Zenair Zodiac 601
- 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
- N444PZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skydive Houston Airport (37XA), Waller, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1995)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the preflight run-up and takeoff were normal, and the engine operated normally during the initial takeoff climb. However, about 150 to 200 ft above ground level, the pilot heard two “pops,” and the engine lost power. He executed a forced landing to an open field.
Postaccident examination revealed that the fuel line at the engine-driven (mechanical) fuel pump inlet was separated from the pump fitting. Examination of the engine did not reveal any anomalies with respect to the engine assembly or the reduction gearbox. However, minimal fuel (one drop) was found in the fuel pump, and no fuel was found in either carburetor bowl. It is likely that the fuel line at the engine-driven pump was not fully secured and became disconnected during the accident flight, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a disconnected fuel line, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA117
- Event ID
- 20210128102567
- Case number
- CEN21LA117
- 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: 5fac45fb9d086b4755243faca3337459e2337f2eea6d5e5e27eb373e8be4dfa5; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:34:55.534Z.