LAX96LA341 · Beech V35A-TC
Beech V35A-TC · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Santa Ynez Airport (IZA) to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA341
- 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 V35A-TC
- 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
- N7956M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Ynez Airport (IZA), CATo Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CA
- 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
- 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 compartment › Fire
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Fuel system, line fitting › Loose
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a dual instructional flight, the pilots observed smoke coming from an area behind the instrument panel. The flight instructor (CFI) took control of the aircraft, while they performed the emergency procedure for in-flight fire. The smoke cleared and the instructor gave control back to the owner/pilot. As they were approaching the airport with gear and flaps extended, they attempted to add power to reach the airport. The engine failed to respond, and a forced landing was performed short of the airport. During the forced landing on unprepared terrain, the aircraft was damaged. The aircraft had flown 2.5 hours since the last annual inspection. Postaccident examination revealed three loose injector lines for the left side cylinders. Fuel dye and fire damage was evident on the left side, where the ignition wires were burnt and the cowling was distorted. All fuel injectors had been removed for cleaning and reinstallation with new seals. After the annual inspection, the aircraft had been taken to another shop to repair an engine baffle on the left side. The aircraft had been flown 1.8 hours since repair of the engine baffle.
Probable cause
failure of a maintenance technician to properly torque the fuel injector lines to three cylinders.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA341
- Event ID
- 20001208X06778
- Case number
- LAX96LA341
- 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: f4926791e49217c0831301e949b66f58b32f95451a715e5cbbec76253b1e33e5; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:05:06.573Z.