NYC95FA049 · Beech G35
Beech G35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Palm Beach County Glades Airport (PHK) to Wellington, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95FA049
- 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
- 1 · 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 G35
- 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
- N32TS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Glades Airport (PHK), Pahokee, FLTo Wellington, FL
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine compartment › Fire
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Fatigue
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Undertorqued
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, top overhaul, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was seen flying erratically, in a rapid descent, with smoke coming from the engine compartment and flames coming from the airplane's right side. Subsequently, the airplane crashed/landed and burned. An investigation revealed that the #1 cylinder had separated from the engine. Examination of the #1 cylinder revealed the upper crankcase thru-bolt at the 10 o'clock position had failed in fatigue below the cylinder deck surface. The lower thru-bolt at the cylinder pad's 8 o'clock position was intact; however, the nut was missing and the threads were battered and polished. The cylinder had 6 deck studs in addition to the thru-bolts. The studs at the 11 and 1 o'clock positions were missing; the studs at the 5 and 7 o'clock positions failed in fatigue; and the studs at the 2 and 4 o'clock positions were fractured with the fractured ends battered. Also, a silicon sealant (RTV) had been used on the thru-bolt threads, though not recommended by the manufacturer. The remaining thru-bolts were examined for tightness using a torque wrench; all were found undertorqued. During a top overhaul of the engine, about 85 flight hours before the accident, all of the cylinders had been removed and reinstalled.
Probable cause
Improper top overhaul by maintenance personnel, and improperly torqued crackcase thru-bolts and cylinder deck studs at the number one cylinder, which led to fatigue failure of four of the bolts, failure and/or separation of the number one cylinder, and a subsequent fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95FA049
- Event ID
- 20001207X02907
- Case number
- NYC95FA049
- 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: f4162dbae3aca4d6333e918440e9c3e91d2270a90a1a34665aae0505fdb2f54f; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:53:31.016Z.