FTW97FA049 · Beech A36TC
Beech A36TC · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Addison Airport (ADS) to Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA049
- 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
- 1 · 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 A36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N48PD
- Operator
- Thomas B. Brewster · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Addison Airport (ADS), Addison, TXTo Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC)
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Due to en route weather, the noninstrument-rated pilot decided to land at an en route airport. During the descent to the airport, the pilot reported a loss of engine power. The passenger stated that the airplane 'appeared to be gliding down toward a field and then it started to spin out of control.' A witness observed the airplane at 150 to 200 feet AGL with the left wing low, then perpendicular to the sky, followed by a nose low impact' short of the runway in flat terrain. Maintenance records did not reveal any uncorrected maintenance defects. Flight control continuity was confirmed. The right rear forward facing seat was found detached from the cabin floor where the nut plates pulled through the floor. Prescription and nonprescription drugs were found in the aircraft, and the toxicology was positive for Verapamil, a high blood pressure medication that may be approved by FAA for use by pilots; however, the FAA records did not indicate that the pilot had requested approval to use the drug. An engine test that was run to full throttle did not reveal any discrepancies that would have contributed to a total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
the total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA049
- Event ID
- 20001208X07023
- Case number
- FTW97FA049
- 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: a5d7511716cc107ce4e4b99d0d5a4ac619782e8dd69c72426d8126bbd2e6ffe1; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:06:16.314Z.