CEN23FA410 · Sonex Aircraft SONEX
Sonex Aircraft SONEX · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Dowagiac Municipal Airport (C91) to Dowagiac Municipal Airport (C91)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23FA410
- 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
- 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
Sonex Aircraft SONEX
- Aircraft type
- Sonex SONEX
- 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
- N569SX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dowagiac Municipal Airport (C91), Dowagiac, MITo Dowagiac Municipal Airport (C91), Dowagiac, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2005)
- 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 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 departed for a local flight and an alert notice (ALNOT) was issued when the pilot did not return. A search effort concluded four days later when the wreckage was found in a heavily wooded area about 4 miles from the departure airport. No ADS-B data associated with the airplane, or the accident flight was available. At the time of the on-scene examination, the transponder was observed in the OFF position. Impact signatures on the propeller were consistent with the propeller not rotating at impact. Examination of the engine revealed that the ignition distributor rotor was fractured and disconnected from its driveshaft. This resulted in a total loss of engine power when the ignition system became inoperative due to the rotor failure. No other preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were found with the airframe or engine.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the failure of the ignition distributor rotor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23FA410
- Event ID
- 20230914193066
- Case number
- CEN23FA410
- 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: 631e7192c235ab290e48f88d97ad164c6a72d196c8f155f136acacdfb692a480; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:05:53.497Z.