CEN25FA056 · Zenith Zodiac CH601
Zenith Zodiac CH601 · Accident
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's date. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25FA056
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
Zenith Zodiac CH601
- Aircraft type
- Zenith ZODIAC CH601
- 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
- N9853M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On September 8, 2024, about 1207 central standard time, a Zenith Zodiac CH601 airplane, N9853M, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Columbia, Illinois. The pilot sustained serious injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The airplane was returning to Sackman Field Airport (IL91) in Columbia, Illinois, after suffering an apparent oil leak during a maintenance test flight. The pilot stated to first responders that he smelled oil and the cockpit started to fill with smoke. During the approach, the pilot opened the cockpit canopy to attempt to regain visibility and lost control of the airplane. The airplane impacted the ground and a postimpact fire ensued and destroyed the airplane. The accident site was in a flat agricultural field about 0.3 nautical miles northwest of the approach end of runway 21. A nearby surveillance camera recording showed the airplane impact the field in a nose high upright configuration, nose over, and come to rest inverted with smoke immediately visible. The pilot stated that he used an onboard fire extinguisher until two witnesses arrived and pulled him from the airplane. The engine compartment, forward fuselage, and cockpit were fully engulfed by fire when first responders. The debris path extended in the field about 60 ft on a heading of 140°, to the main wreckage. The airplane engine compartment, fuselage, and inboard sections of both wings had extensive thermal damage from a post-crash fire. Flight control continuity from the flight control surfaces to the cockpit controls were confirmed along with the engine power control. The engine was an experimental inline four cylinder, normally aspirated, manufactured by Aero Momentum and was observed to have damage consisting of several holes in the engine case and oil pan that corresponded with a damaged piston assembly. The wreckage was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25FA056
- Event ID
- 20241208199394
- Case number
- CEN25FA056
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 457f35f09e5dc5f88a80512ffeda034cd506ab3de14abfe80a65f067ec10b7bc; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:31:36.430Z.