CEN23LA402 · Vans RV14 A
Vans RV14 A · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure en route
From Fair Weather Field (TX42) to Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport (KLBX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA402
- 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
- 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
Vans RV14 A
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV14
- 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
- N14NP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fair Weather Field (TX42), Monaville, TXTo Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport (KLBX), Angleton, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2017)
- 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
- Electrical system malfunction/failure
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 10 minutes into the accident flight, the pilot noticed the left and right battery indications on the instrument panel turned on and off several times. About 8 minutes later, he noticed a loss of electrical power to the secondary electronic flight instrument system (EFIS) and several other avionics, but the primary EFIS was still powered, and the engine continued to operate normally. The pilot turned back toward the departure airport and flew for another 10 minutes until the airplane lost all electrical and engine power. The pilot then made a forced landing to a field, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane. Recorded flight data provided by the pilot indicated that the airplane’s EFIS generated a battery alert shortly before takeoff; intermittent battery alerts continued for about 17 minutes. However, the NTSB was unable to verify the accuracy of these data. Postaccident examinations revealed that the No. 2 alternator belt had failed; the No. 1 alternator belt remained intact. The airplane’s two batteries did not show any voltage when tested with a multimeter. Due to incorrect electrical wiring, only the No. 2 alternator charged the batteries while the airplane was operating. The No. 2 alternator belt likely failed in flight, after which the engine and some avionics were able to operate for a short time using battery power. Because the airplane was equipped with an electronic ignition and fuel injection system, the engine lost power when the batteries subsequently discharged and were unable to produce adequate voltage.
Probable cause
The failure of an alternator belt and the builder/previous owner’s incorrect electrical wiring of the airplane’s other alternator, which resulted in a total loss of electrical and engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA402
- Event ID
- 20230906193019
- Case number
- CEN23LA402
- 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: c048b6a87fd38532f1e2455636662c58729bdc357f0416dbdd832b7cde28a294; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:05:49.629Z.