ATL97LA142 · Beech 33
Beech 33 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Pickens County Airport (JZP) to Smith Reynolds Airport (INT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA142
- 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 33
- 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
- N331DP
- Operator
- Alan Land
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pickens County Airport (JZP), Jasper, GATo Smith Reynolds Airport (INT)
- 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 · 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
- 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; Utility pole
- 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 › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that before takeoff, he checked the aircraft fuel supply and elected not to refuel. He reported that during examination of the fuel supply, the fuel supply in the left wing tank was two inches below the filler cap, and the right fuel gauge showed 1/4 tank. The pilot thought he had ample fuel for the 269 mile flight to the destination airport. Before reaching his distination, the pilot advised an air traffic controller that he was experiencing engine problems and requested assistance to the nearest airport. Moments later, he reported that the engine was running again, and he wanted to continue the flight to the destination airport. About five miles from the airport, the pilot reported that the engine had quit again. Subsequently, during a forced landing, the airplane collided with a utility pole and lines. Examination of the airplane failed to disclose a mechanical problem or system malfunction. There was no fuel recovered from the aircraft fuel system during field examination of the airframe.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion, loss of engine power, and a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA142
- Event ID
- 20001208X08794
- Case number
- ATL97LA142
- 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: f6375934b01816c1f5ffe15d9f004993a9044abb524440156e99feebd0a5f338; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:31:15.201Z.