CEN22FA375 · Sonex Aircraft WAIEX UNDESIGNAT
Sonex Aircraft WAIEX UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Colusa County Airport (O08) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22FA375
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Sonex Aircraft WAIEX UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Sonex WAIEX
- 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
- N51YX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Colusa County Airport (O08), Colusa, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed in the experimental airplane for a personal flight. A review of the onboard recorded data showed that shortly before the data terminated, the airplane went from a straight and level attitude to a nose-down attitude. A review of the recorded engine parameters did not show any signatures consistent with a loss of engine power. The airplane came to rest nose down, in a flat dirt field. The wreckage, which was destroyed, sustained fire damage.
Postaccident examination did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe and the engine. No fire damage specifically related to an in-flight fire was found in the wreckage.
The pilot purchased the airplane with a partner about 1 year before the accident. According to his logbook, he had flown the airplane 26.2 hours, of which 20.0 hours were with a flight instructor.
Toxicological tests revealed ethanol was detected in lung, liver, kidney, and heart tissue samples along with N-propanol detected in lung tissue, kidney tissue, and heart tissue. Based on the pattern of toxicology results, some or all the ethanol detected in the pilot’s postmortem specimens likely was from sources other than ethanol consumption. Given the unclear accident circumstances, there was insufficient evidence to determine whether low-level ethanol effects may have contributed to the accident. The pilot’s autopsy was severely limited by the extent of the injuries sustained and therefore reduced the potential for determining if the pilot suffered from impairment or incapacitation due to medical reasons during the flight.
Based on the available evidence, it is likely the airplane departed from controlled flight for unknown reasons, entered a nose-down attitude that was not recovered from, and the airplane impacted terrain. The reason for the loss of control in flight was undetermined.
Probable cause
A loss of control in flight for undetermined reasons that resulted in an impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22FA375
- Event ID
- 20220809105703
- Case number
- CEN22FA375
- 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: 88cca4a23a5c0a464eaca7622749c7b36e26584e6476a8210e93368e5f349a43; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:48:49.067Z.