WPR22LA002 · Zenith CH750
Zenith CH750 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA002
- 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
Zenith CH750
- Aircraft type
- Zenith CH750
- 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
- N99HX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2016)
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, following an uneventful local flight, as he turned onto final approach to land, the passenger told him that she smelled something burning, and shortly after the pilot did as well. The pilot stated that, a few moments later, the sound of the engine changed for about 5 seconds, followed by a total loss of engine power. The pilot realized he was unable to make it to the airport so he initiated an off-airport landing. During the landing sequence, the airplane impacted trees and terrain before it nosed over and came to rest inverted.
The pilot reported that before the flight, he refueled the left wing fuel tank with 4 gallons of automotive fuel, to a level of fuel between 7 and 10 gallons, and had noted the right wing contained 2 to 4 gallons of fuel. Additionally, he reported that he did not visually verify the fuel quantity in the right fuel tank, however, he did “dip” the left fuel tank. The pilot reported that the right fuel tank was empty after the accident and the left fuel tank was leaking “slightly.” Postaccident examination of the recovered airplane revealed the fuel valves between the header tank and the wings were in the “off” position, and the fuel valve from the header tank to the electronic fuel pump was in the “on” position. The header fuel tank was empty. About a teaspoon of fuel was removed from the mechanical fuel pump. No fuel was observed within either carburetor float bowl. A fuel source was attached to the engine inlet fuel pump, and the engine was successfully run. Each main fuel tank can hold a maximum of 24 gallons of fuel of which 22 gallons are usable. No evidence of any preexisting mechanical malfunctions were observed with the recovered engine or airframe.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA002
- Event ID
- 20211004104033
- Case number
- WPR22LA002
- 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, coordinates. 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: 69fe96267d6842d6d51ec2d19b40987557efb8883619db5c124f4c96ab16af4c; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:37:04.784Z.