WPR24LA121 · Kitfox Series 5
Kitfox Series 5 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Upland-Cable Airport (CCB) to Henderson Executive Airport (HND)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA121
- 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
Kitfox Series 5
- Aircraft type
- Kitfox SERIES 5
- 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
- N743JT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Upland-Cable Airport (CCB), Upland, CATo Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Las Vegas, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Powerplant system/component 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported the engine run-up and takeoff were normal. While in cruise flight the pilot noticed a slight drop in oil pressure. With no increase in oil temperature or other engine warnings he decided to continue the flight while monitoring the engine parameters. A short time later the oil pressure began to drop at a faster rate. He decided to perform a precautionary landing. He shut down the engine and configured the airplane for landing on a highway service road, but while on approach he noticed the landing area was obstructed by light poles. He maneuvered the airplane towards an adjacent dirt field; however, the terrain was much rougher than anticipated, and the airplane nosed over during roll out after striking scrub brush.
The engine’s oil sump had a crack in its mounting flange that resulted in a loss of oil on previous flights, but not at a significant rate. The crack was then improperly repaired by the pilot, who used epoxy putty to seal it rather than having it welded or replaced. During the accident flight, which was the first since the repair, the crack propagated beyond the putty fill area and the putty unbonded, resulting in most of the engine oil being expelled out of the crack.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper repair of the oil sump, which resulted in a loss of oil pressure and collision with terrain during a precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA121
- Event ID
- 20240409194060
- Case number
- WPR24LA121
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2024-04-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5c78ec23a9e09552bd246fc0f8382c8258aa0f1616d4e85127364f0d0bf925a2; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:39:29.729Z.