Richland Aviation Beech S-35 accident
Beech S-35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Glasgow Valley County Airport Wokal Field (GGW) to L M Clayton Airport (OLF)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95LA050
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 S-35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft S-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
- N8828M
- Operator
- Richland Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glasgow Valley County Airport Wokal Field (GGW), Glasgow, MTTo L M Clayton Airport (OLF)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Fluid, oil › No pressure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT NOTED A LOSS OF OIL PRESSURE, WHICH HE MONITORED. THE ENGINE BEGAN RUNNING ROUGHLY AFTER ONE TO THREE MINUTES, AND HE ELECTED TO MAKE A FORCED LANDING. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE CHOSE A LEVEL SPOT FOR THE FORCED LANDING, BUT IT WAS GETTING DARK AND HE DIDN'T SEE A BARBED WIRE FENCE ACROSS THE LANDING SITE. HE DID NOT SEE THE FENCE POSTS UNTIL FLARING FOR A LANDING. THE RIGHT WING STRUCK TWO FENCE POSTS, CAUSING SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE. ENGINE TEARDOWN REVEALED THAT A CONNECTING ROD FAILED. THE ENGINE HAD FIVE HOURS SINCE MAJOR OVERHAUL.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF POWER DUE TO LOST OIL PRESSURE AND A FAILED CONNECTING ROD. FACTORS INCLUDE FENCE POSTS AND DUSK LIGHTING CONDITIONS WHICH LIMITED VISIBILITY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95LA050
- Event ID
- 20001207X03042
- Case number
- SEA95LA050
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1995-02-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ac454310e23662644d3697f33657a3c61b08722e834ca5e42f9b0f5959979127; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:03:39.555Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N8828M; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.