FTW95FA300 · Beech C35
Beech C35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Lancaster Airport (LNC) to F69
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA300
- 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
- N1997D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lancaster Airport (LNC), Lancaster, TXTo F69
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING FINAL APPROACH TO LAND, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. THE PILOT TURNED ON THE FUEL BOOST PUMP AND ADDED FULL THROTTLE, BUT DID NOT SWITCH FUEL TANKS. HE ATTEMPTED TO LAND IN A FIELD; HOWEVER, PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN, THE AIRPLANE STRUCK A TREE AND IMPACTED THE GROUND. THE FUEL TANK SELECTOR WAS POSITIONED TO THE LEFT MAIN TANK, AND THE LEFT MAIN TANK WAS EMPTY. FUEL WAS AVAILABLE IN THE RIGHT MAIN TANK. ALSO, THE SINGLE FUEL QUANTITY GAGE WAS SET TO INDICATE THE FUEL QUANTITY IN THE RIGHT MAIN TANK. THE MANUFACTURER'S EMERGENCY PROCEDURE CALLED FOR THE PILOT TO CHANGE TANKS FOLLOWING A POWER LOSS. THE PILOT REPORTED HE HAD RECENTLY FOUND WATER CONTAMINATION IN THE FUEL SYSTEM AND BELIEVED THE POWER LOSS WAS A RESULT OF THE CONTAMINATION. A TRACE OF WATER WAS DRAINED FROM THE MAIN FUEL SUMP; HOWEVER, THE WATER LEVEL IN THE SUMP WAS BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE FUEL OUTLET TO THE ENGINE.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION DUE TO THE IMPROPER POSITION OF THE FUEL SELECTOR, AND FAILURE THE PILOT TO FOLLOW EMERGENCY PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA300
- Event ID
- 20001207X03930
- Case number
- FTW95FA300
- 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: cb6847c9d8148755bedaa5936839dbb66fa61cb6cbd2d9b8ce8cdc30043ba3c5; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:11:25.741Z.