CEN24LA056 · Vans RV6 A
Vans RV6 A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA) to Cleveland Municipal Airport (RNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA056
- 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 RV6 A
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV6
- 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
- N600VS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Durant Regional Airport - Eaker Field (DUA), Durant, OKTo Cleveland Municipal Airport (RNV), Cleveland, MS
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two pilots who had just purchased the experimental airplane planned to fly it without a recent condition inspection and without a ferry permit to their home airport. During the flight, the airplane sustained a partial loss of engine power. They diverted the flight to an alternate airport, where they attempted to land the airplane. They were unable to extend the wing flaps during the approach for landing and performed a forward slip to decrease altitude. The airplane touched down about halfway down the runway and then overran the runway departure end, where it nosed over in a grass area. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the airplane’s two 12V automotive batteries would not start the engine. However, the engine would start and operate when connected to an operational external battery and the fuel pump turned on. The engine would not start or operate at rated power without the fuel pump operating. An engine-driven fuel pump was not installed on this engine. It is likely that the alternator was not charging the batteries during the accident flight, and the engine ignition and pump were being operated on battery voltage, which was eventually depleted below the engine’s operating tolerances. Also, the failure of the flaps to extend was likely related to the low battery voltage. A recent and proper condition inspection would have likely found and corrected any electrical system faults.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to attain a proper touchdown point following an unidentified electrical system failure and subsequent partial loss of engine power, which resulted in a runway overrun and impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to operate the airplane in an unairworthy condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA056
- Event ID
- 20231207193496
- Case number
- CEN24LA056
- 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: cbd1b9f72649246c6c7bcb83072b38e2210a8233fb3884b5d2b638611053059e; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:21:29.885Z.