BFO96LA021 · Beech E55
Beech E55 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From HEF to Montgomery County Airpark (GAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO96LA021
- 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 E55
- 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
- N36SV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HEFTo Montgomery County Airpark (GAI), Gaithersburg, MD
- 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
- Partial 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Manassas, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot estimated that there was about 60 gallons of fuel onboard the airplane at the time of departure, of which more than two thirds was in the main tanks. The pilot reported that during ground operations, he switched the fuel selector valves to the aux position in an attempt to conserve fuel in the main tanks. He said that he intended to switch back to the main tanks before takeoff, in accordance with the checklist procedure, but forgot. The pilot reported that as the airplane lifted off and he reached for the landing gear handle, the left engine lost power and the airplane snap rolled to the left. Witnesses reported that the airplane impacted the ground on its left wing and cartwheeled beside the runway. A bulletin from the aircraft manufacturer stated, '...If the auxiliary tanks are...selected for takeoff...it is possible for air to enter the auxiliary tank outlet, leading to power interruption.' There was no evidence of preimpact mechanical failure.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain control of the airplane, when the left engine lost power shortly after liftoff. Related factors were the pilot's failure to follow the checklist procedure, and his failure to ensure that the fuel selector was in the proper position for takeoff, which resulted in fuel starvation to the left engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO96LA021
- Event ID
- 20001207X04814
- Case number
- BFO96LA021
- 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: dcf2710a36342355736d264d1f110cef6f8ca134613e4145c7087857d99ea352; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:00:35.256Z.