LAX94LA363 · Beech C35
Beech C35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Blythe Airport (BLH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA363
- 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 C35
- 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
- N622D
- Operator
- Daniel N. Sinclair · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Blythe Airport (BLH), Blythe, CA
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not selected
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
IN CRUISE OVER THE MOUNTAINS, THE FUEL PRESSURE DECREASED AND THE ENGINE QUIT. ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE POWER BY ACTIVATING THE HAND OPERATED PUMP ON THE FUEL SELECTOR AND SWITCHING BETWEEN TANKS WERE FUTILE. THE PILOT SPOTTED THE DESERT FLOOR AIRPORT JUST BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS AND ATTEMPTED A FORCED LANDING ON RUNWAY 25; HOWEVER, HE LANDED 100 YARDS SHORT IN ROUGH DESERT TERRAIN. FAA INSPECTORS FOUND THE FUEL SELECTOR VALVE ON THE RIGHT TANK AND THE SELECTOR HANDLE EXTENDED INTO THE PUMP OPERATING POSITION. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE RIGHT TANK, WITH NO EVIDENCE OF SPILLAGE NOTED ON THE SURROUNDING GROUND. THE LEFT FUEL TANK CONTAINED ABOUT 1/4 TO 1/2 CAPACITY. THE ENGINE-DRIVEN FUEL PUMP AND THE COMBINED FUEL SELECTOR VALVE AND HAND FUEL PUMP WERE FOUND TO FUNCTION. THE COMBINATION FUEL SELECTOR AND HAND OPERATED FUEL PUMP UNIT HAS TWO SEPARATE MODES. WITH THE HANDLE IN THE DOWN POSITION, THE UNIT IS A FUEL SELECTOR VALVE. WHEN THE HANDLE IS EXTENDED INTO THE PUMP POSITION, THE FUEL SELECTOR VALVE MODE IS DISABLED. THE PILOT PURCHASED THE AIRCRAFT ABOUT 3 WEEKS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT AND HAS ONLY 6 HOURS IN THE AIRCRAFT.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent allowance of a fuel starvation loss of power event and his failure to select a tank containing fuel due to his lack of knowledge about the fuel pump/selector unit operating limitations. Factors in the accident were his limited experience in the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA363
- Event ID
- 20001206X02289
- Case number
- LAX94LA363
- 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: 8c11063f80d0f71e895970dc4b38238d893bcfe64e0269610f08bb14a9bb144c; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:38:30.849Z.