CEN23LA371 · Rutan LONGEZ
Rutan LONGEZ · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Oakland County International Airport (PTK) to Covington Municipal Airport (M04)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA371
- 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
Rutan LONGEZ
- Aircraft type
- Rutan LONGEZ
- 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
- N29TM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland County International Airport (PTK), Pontiac, MITo Covington Municipal Airport (M04), Covington, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1987)
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while climbing to cruise altitude after takeoff, the engine suddenly lost total power. He attempted to restart the engine, but was unsuccessful, and subsequently conducted a forced landing into a pond. While maneuvering, the airplane impacted a tree, resulting in substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage. Examination of the engine revealed no evidence of any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The magnetos had evidence of exposure to high temperature; however, both magnetos functioned when bench tested. Blast tubes for magneto cooling were installed, but the effectiveness of the blast tubes could not be determined. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA371
- Event ID
- 20230821192909
- Case number
- CEN23LA371
- 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, 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: 3bc037bfc082c5ab50efd3289c186fbb0e4806dd39c48c3c9229ef26b0da31aa; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:01:38.433Z.