MIA99LA088 · Beech K35
Beech K35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport (X51) to Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (GPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA088
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech K35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N15FF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport (X51), Homestead, FLTo Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (GPT), MS
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fuel system, vent › Obstructed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he was indicating half full on his left main fuel tank, being vectored in IMC conditions by FAA Gulfport (Mississippi) Approach Control radar for an instrument landing, when he lost engine power. He thought that he had a least 12 to 15 gallons of fuel remaining. He could not regain engine power and ditched the airplane in the Gulf of Mexico. When the airplane was recovered 6 days later from the 6 to 8 feet depth water, about 12.5 to 13 gallons of uncontaminated blue colored 100LL aviation fuel remained in the left main fuel tank. Subsequent examination of the fuel system by FAA inspectors revealed a clogged left wing fuel vent system.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation caused by an obstruction in the fuel vent system while maneuvering in IMC conditions, and the subsequent ditching into the Gulf of Mexico.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA088
- Event ID
- 20001205X00214
- Case number
- MIA99LA088
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 6e3b8be2a6537c898e890930161c91d71b72d3d48e9d0ad549fdcab2343aa82d; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:51:14.979Z.