CHI96LA273 · Beech 77
Beech 77 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Olson Airport (LL53) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA273
- 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 77
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 77
- 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
- N18259
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olson Airport (LL53)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
- En route · climb to 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Contamination, water
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was at 1,700 feet mean sea level, initiated a climb, and the 'rpm dropped fast.' The pilot stated he pulled the carburetor heat on and left it on for 30 to 45 seconds. He pushed the mixture to rich, tried each magneto separately, and turned the fuel pump on but the engine did not regain power above about 1,500 rpm. He flew a 'regular pattern,' and made a 'beautiful soft field landing' in a field. During the landing roll, at an indicated airspeed of about 40 to 50 knots, the airplane impacted a ditch sustaining substantial damage. Examination of the airplane revealed approximately one to two tablespoons of water in the carburetor bowl. Examination of the carburetor, exhaust system, magnetos, and fuel system revealed no evidence of preimpact malfunction. During a test run, the engine operated normally at low power settings.
Probable cause
water contamination in the carburetor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA273
- Event ID
- 20001208X06441
- Case number
- CHI96LA273
- 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: 9ca7728472431aa276669406b0456cc6ff9e7e29792efbea31fcb02d05c2741d; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:38:02.836Z.