CEN23LA010 · Zenith Aircraft Company CH 750
Zenith Aircraft Company CH 750 · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Aitkin Municipal Airport Steve Kurtz Field (AIT) to Isedor Iverson Airport (HZX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA010
- 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 Aircraft Company 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
- N550ZF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aitkin Municipal Airport Steve Kurtz Field (AIT), Aitkin, MNTo Isedor Iverson Airport (HZX), McGregor, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2010)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a personal flight when the airplane had a total loss of engine power during cruise flight. The pilot stated that the flight departed with about 16 gallons of fuel distributed evenly between the left- and right-wing tanks, and both fuel tank gauges indicated about ¾ full before departure. About 30-45 minutes into the flight, the pilot noted that the left fuel tank gauge indicated about ¼ full while the right fuel tank gauge remained about ¾ full. The pilot decided to reposition the fuel selector valve to the right fuel tank to correct the fuel imbalance. The pilot stated that the location of his Apple iPad in the cockpit blocked his view of the right fuel tank gauge, so he made a “mental note” to check the right fuel tank gauge in about 30-45 minutes.
The pilot reported that the flight continued uneventfully at 300 ft above ground level until the airplane had a total loss of engine power due to a lack of fuel in the right fuel tank. The engine did not restart after the pilot repositioned the fuel selector valve to BOTH, turned on the electric fuel boost pump, and engaged the electric starter. Both wings were substantially damaged during the subsequent forced landing in a wooded area.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The low altitude at which the loss of engine power occurred significantly reduced the amount of time available to the pilot to troubleshoot and restore engine power before the forced landing.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the pilot’s improper fuel management, which led to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the low altitude at which the loss of engine power occurred.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA010
- Event ID
- 20221011106094
- Case number
- CEN23LA010
- 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: ce0b662e3e4034a684041ef6e39ece926774460185dfb360df2e8f3c8d723502; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:14:24.793Z.