FTW97LA309 · Beech F33A
Beech F33A · Accident: fire en route
From Monroe Regional Airport (MLU) to Delhi
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA309
- 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 F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N234PM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monroe Regional Airport (MLU)To Delhi
- 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
- Fire
- 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
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Shorted
- Fluid, fuel › Fire
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Fuel system, line › Burned
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he had 'picked up' his airplane that morning after an annual inspection. He reported that he flew home to Delhi for a short stop, then proceeded to the Monroe Airport for some avionics repairs. After the work was completed, he departed for Delhi. During departure, at about 2000 ft agl and 5 miles from the departure airport, the pilot 'detected an odor similar to an electrical burnout.' He stated that he detected no onboard problems and decided the smell was coming from outside. He reported that approximately 45 seconds later, a flame ignited from behind the fuel selector valve. He stated that he 'immediately did a 180 degree turn and attempted to get Monroe approach on the radio,' but the radios were inoperable. The pilot reported that on short final approach for landing, 'I opened the passenger door and fortunately this snuffed out the flame.' After landing, maintenance personnel found two loose wires next to a hole in the fuel line and 'gasoline was running out of the fuselage onto the ramp.' The carry through spar had to be replaced due to thermal damage.
Probable cause
an electrical short, which burned a hole in a fuel line, and subsequent fire from the burning fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA309
- Event ID
- 20001208X08143
- Case number
- FTW97LA309
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 192eb4c18fe2007c8fb12bf85457461b90ec25b7b2e2aeeb3013e556a715ee55; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:22:10.984Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states that after the avionics repairs at Monroe "he departed for Delhi", returning to Monroe after the in-flight fire; the destination was not recorded.