MIA99LA137 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Houston Municipal Airport (M44) to Huntsville International Airport (HSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA137
- 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
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N769LW
- Operator
- Joseph W. Camp · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houston Municipal Airport (M44), Houston, MSTo Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Huntsville, AL
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, throttle response was not possible and the engine rpm decreased to near idle. While descending for a forced landing with the landing gear extended, the pilot later stated that he could not recall the last several thousand feet of the descent. The airplane collided with trees then the ground. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed a castellated nut which secures a lever onto the throttle plate shaft was loose by 10.5 turns of the 6 sided nut; no cotter pin was found. This condition would not allow movement of the throttle plate shaft with movement of the throttle control. Postaccident, the engine was removed from the airplane, placed in a test cell, and found to operate normally. Following collapse of the nose landing gear August 1998, the engine and fuel control valve were overhauled. Following the engine overhaul, the engine was test run. The air throttle assembly was then removed for shipping, the lever was loosened, and the engine and boxed air throttle assembly were shipped to where the airplane was being repaired. The air throttle assembly was installed on the engine which was installed into the airplane. The engine was then run and no engine related discrepancies were noted.
Probable cause
The failure of maintenance personnel from Signature Flight Support to assure that a cotter pin was installed at the air throttle assembly lever following installation of the overhauled fuel control valve onto the overhauled engine. This resulted in the partial loss of engine power due to the failure of the pilot to adjust the throttle control. A factor in the accident was the premature extension by the pilot of the landing gear which reduced the glide distance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA137
- Event ID
- 20001205X00538
- Case number
- MIA99LA137
- 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: c4d7945960d2d5ca9fa6e18f5f8ea893a35e577e34e1419d93084dd1db28ab1b; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:08:27.672Z.