CHI97LA175 · Beech C23
Beech C23 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Spencer Municipal Airport (SPW) to Wamego Municipal Airport (69K)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA175
- 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 C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N6535R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spencer Municipal Airport (SPW), Spencer, IATo Wamego Municipal Airport (69K), KS
- 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 go-around
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was fueled with 32.2 gallons of usable fuel prior to departure. While on final approach during the second leg of a cross country flight, the pilot spotted parachutists over the airport. He applied power to go-around at which time the engine did not respond. The airplane collided with the terrain while the pilot attempted to avoid powerlines. Inspection of the wreckage revealed 20 ounces of fuel in the left fuel tank which was selected. The right fuel tank was empty. No fuel was found in the carburetor nor was there any signs of fuel leakage at the accident site.
Probable cause
inaccurate preflight planning which resulted in an inadequate fuel supply for the flight and ultimately fuel exhaustion. Factors associated with the accident were the powerlines and the parachutists over the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA175
- Event ID
- 20001208X08088
- Case number
- CHI97LA175
- 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: 55bf47762ca02d396ccf5d0fdc866a212db5e46c82fbb492cfb22bc53a943e58; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:24:50.249Z.