LAX95LA040 · Beech 95-B55
Cloverfield Aviation Beech 95-B55 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA040
- 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 95-B55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N1898W
- Operator
- Cloverfield Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO)To not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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(cfi) › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CFI AND STUDENT HAD DEPARTED SANTA MONICA AT 1356 ON A CROSS-COUNTRY CHECKOUT WITH FULL FUEL TANKS. TAKEOFFS, LANDINGS, AND/OR INSTRUMENT APPROACHES WERE MADE AT 6 DIFFERENT LOCATIONS THROUGHOUT THE FLIGHT. THE CFI KNEW THE AIRCRAFT HAD INACCURATE FUEL GAUGES. AFTER FLYING FOR 5.3 HOBBS-METER-HOURS, WHILE USING FUEL FROM A COMBINATION OF AUX AND MAIN TANKS, THEY RETURNED TO SANTA MONICA. BOTH PILOTS REPORTED THAT THE MAIN TANKS' FUEL GAUGES INDICATED AT OR ABOVE THE 'YELLOW ARC.' THE CFI AUTHORIZED ONE FINAL TRAFFIC PATTERN CIRCUIT. WHILE CLIMBING TO 1,000 FT, ONE OF THE ENGINES STARTED RUNNING ROUGH THEN QUIT. SECONDS LATER, POWER WAS ALSO LOST ON THE SECOND ENGINE. THE CFI TOOK CONTROL, REVERSED COURSE, AND GLIDED TO THE RUNWAY WITH THE LANDING GEAR INTENTIONALLY RETRACTED TO INCREASE THE LIKLIHOOD OF REACHING THE AIRPORT. THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESTROYED BY THE POSTCRASH FIRE.
Probable cause
fuel starvation to both engines due to the CFI's inadequate fuel consumption calculations during the flight, and his failure to ensure that adequate fuel existed in the main tanks to complete the traffic pattern circuit.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA040
- Event ID
- 20001206X02620
- Case number
- LAX95LA040
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-11-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 67d1dd3462a2b720aa87b0aae26e291cd8d457eeb1ff51151856e935b369fc30; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:26:06.511Z.