FTW97LA338 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From San Rafael Airport (CA35) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA338
- 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 V35B
- 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
- N7397R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Rafael Airport (CA35), San Rafael, CATo Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, CO
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Terrain condition › None suitable
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on 2/23/2016. Please see the public docket for this accident for additional information.**
After 6 hours of flight cross-country from San Rafael, California, to Denver, Colorado, the engine lost power, and the pilot conducted an emergency landing in a field after attempts to restart the engine were unsuccessful. During the landing roll, the airplane collided with a fence and an irrigation ditch, damaging both wings and causing fuel to spill from tanks in both wings. The local fire chief stated that firefighters recovered more than 25 gallons of fuel during cleanup operations. The airplane, equipped with auxiliary long-range tip tanks, departed with 114 gallons on board. Based on standard-day values, performance calculations indicated that the airplane had burned about 84 gallons in 6 hours of cruise. Takeoff and climb would have increased the amount of fuel used.
Probable cause
**This report was modified on 2/23/2016. Please see the public docket for this accident for additional information.**
the loss of engine power during cruise for undetermined reasons and the unsuitable terrain encountered by the pilot during the forced landing. The fence and irrigation ditch were factors in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA338
- Event ID
- 20001208X08838
- Case number
- FTW97LA338
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-09-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aa9b144044e1bb3556bb2043bb93dd294a4d1a58e35e6dcf494eac7b8e1cd5bc; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:41:54.915Z.