FTW97LA272 · Beech C35
Beech C35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA272
- 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 C35
- 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
- N1878D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK)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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been practicing night landings at the Chickasha Municipal Airport. While in the traffic pattern (for runway 17), the engine lost power, and the pilot initiated a forced landing. During the landing roll, the airplane struck a fence and crossed a ditch, collapsing the nose landing gear. The airplane came to rest inverted approximately one half mile north of runway 17. The pilot reported that he had selected the left fuel tank, and 'thinks the engine quit because there was no fuel left in the left fuel tank.' Examination of the fuel system revealed that there was no fuel in the left main fuel tank and tip tank. The fuel selector was positioned to the left tank, and there was no evidence of fuel spillage from that tank. The right main fuel tank contained fuel; it was leaking fuel from its filler cap. The Pilot's Operating Handbook for the airplane stated in Section IV, Normal Procedures, page 4-10, Before Landing, 'Fuel Selector Valve - SELECT MAIN TANK MORE NEARLY FULL.'
Probable cause
the pilot's improper positioning of the fuel selector, which resulted in fuel starvation and loss of engine power. Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's failure to follow the checklist, and the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA272
- Event ID
- 20001208X08384
- Case number
- FTW97LA272
- 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: bb6d4e316ed94ff2299b22af70d12f550b8ed2cda2c5649dca553f0c46b02c15; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:19:36.346Z.