CEN26LA230 · Zenith Aircraft Company 601 XL
Zenith Aircraft Company 601 XL · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From Lamesa Municipal Airport (KLUV) to Jefferson City Memorial Airport (KJEF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA230
- 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
- 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 Aircraft Company 601 XL
- Aircraft type
- Zenith 601
- 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
- N165TJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lamesa Municipal Airport (KLUV), Lamesa, TXTo Jefferson City Memorial Airport (KJEF), Jefferson City, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2011)
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On June 20, 2026, about 1147 central daylight time, an experimental Zodiac 601XL airplane, N165TJ, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near O’Donnell, Texas. The pilot sustained serious injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 positioning flight. The pilot reported that she was relocating the airplane for the new owner, which was something she had previously done for this owner. During the preflight inspection, she did not find anything wrong with the airplane. About 15 minutes after departure, the canopy popped open about 2 inches, and she observed that the main canopy latch was no longer fully latched. As she initiated a right turn back to the airport, the latch broke and the canopy flew open. She grabbed the canopy rope and attempted to close the canopy but was unable. Due to the excessive drag, airplane’s descent increased so she executed a forced landing to a field. During the landing the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. The pilot added that she had accumulated about 20 to 30 hours in the same airplane model but had never flown this airplane before. Postaccident examination by the FAA revealed that the airplane landed in an agricultural field, perpendicular to the rows of crops. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, empennage, and wings. The airplane was equipped with a forward hinging, tip-up canopy with gas struts that assisted in opening the canopy and supported the canopy when open. The main canopy latch was on the front left side near the instrument panel. The rear of the canopy frame featured a rope that locked into a cam cleat behind the pilot’s seat, which acted as a secondary canopy latch. A condition inspection was completed on May 18, 2026, at 388.6 hours airframe total time. The logbook entry noted that the canopy was clear with no distortion and recommended replacement of the canopy struts. The airplane has been retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA230
- Event ID
- 20260622203215
- Case number
- CEN26LA230
- 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. 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: ab3d6e41dcba76f1d0fb5e9a6bd61d2786bb0902365dc2416e60c46667461563; retrieved 2026-09-17T05:11:30.364Z.