CEN26LA057 · Zenith Stol CH701
Zenith Stol CH701 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From an unrecorded airport to Perry Municipal Airport (F22)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA057
- 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
Zenith Stol CH701
- Aircraft type
- Zenith Stol CH701
- 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
- N701SA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Perry Municipal Airport (F22), Perry, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2021)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
- 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
The pilot diverted to an alternate airport due to foggy weather along his route of flight. The pilot stated that while descending to land, the weather was getting worse and he wanted to get on the ground quickly. While landing on runway 35, the airplane dropped from about 20 ft above ground level and the left landing gear hit first. The pilot was unable to maintain control, and the airplane nosed over which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage, vertical stabilizer, rudder, and wings. The pilot stated the accident could have been prevented by noting the windsock direction and wind speed and that he would never rush a landing again. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Weather reports indicated that the pilot landed the airplane with a 10-knot right quartering tailwind.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper landing flare which resulted in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot being in a rush and failing to note the wind direction and speed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA057
- Event ID
- 20251208202127
- Case number
- CEN26LA057
- 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: 4029ee7b8a48d69a5e8d86ea57cb2ea231f90321e7e6cb4cdda58e85af2c0a8d; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:35:42.054Z.