LAX98LA015 · Beech D17S
Beech D17S · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Chino Airport (CNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA015
- 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 D17S
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 17
- 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
- N67736
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Chino Airport (CNO)
- 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 management, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that no mechanical malfunctions were experienced during the 30-minute-long nighttime flight in his 1943 model 'Stagger Wing' airplane. During the flight he had switched fuel tanks several times. Upon turning onto the final approach leg at the destination airport the center fuel tank's low fuel pressure warning light activated. Thereafter, the fuel pressure decreased and all engine power was lost. The pilot further reported that he switched tanks and used the wobble pump but to no avail as the airplane developed a high sink rate. The pilot made a forced landing into a plowed field and collided with dirt berms about 1/2 mile short of the runway. During the airframe examination no fuel was found in the two upper wing tanks, the center fuselage tank, or in the lower wing's right tank. Approximately 10 gallons of fuel was observed in the lower wing's left tank. Airplane operating procedures required the pilot to have the fuel selector positioned toward the center fuel tank during takeoffs and landings. The lower wing tanks are only to be used during level flight.
Probable cause
fuel starvation resulting from the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning and improper fuel management. Contributing factors were the nighttime conditions and the rough/uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA015
- Event ID
- 20001208X09059
- Case number
- LAX98LA015
- 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 1997-10-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7190c5029e7bfbe3849d8f60ab594c8a4116062f90dca63912bf2d66c82c4a20; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:06:10.961Z.