IAD98LA028 · Beech 55B
Beech 55B · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) to Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (ROC)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98LA028
- 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 55B
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N1072W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF)To Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (ROC), Rochester, NY
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 · Estimated position: the centre of Buffalo, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was cleared for takeoff on runway 14, and he applied full power for takeoff. At rotation, approximately 104 knots, the right engine lost power. He lowered the nose, applied full left rudder, but the airplane continued off the right side of the runway. The airplane collided with two taxiway signs, the right main gear sheared off, and the airplane came to rest opposite the direction of travel. He said he departed with the fuel selectors on the main tank position, and that he turned off all the switches before exiting the airplane. An FAA Inspector reported that he found the fuel selectors positioned to the auxiliary tanks. The right auxiliary fuel tank was drained and contained 3.5 gallons of fuel. According to the Pilot Operating Handbook, '...Takeoff and land on main fuel tanks only...Do not take off if Fuel Quantity Gages indicate in Yellow Arc or with less than 13 gallons in each main tank...' The pilot reported that he had approximately 56 gallons on board, 1/4 in the auxiliary fuel tanks and 3/4 in the main fuel tanks. The engine was test run after the accident and it operated satisfactory.
Probable cause
Improper use of the fuel selector, which resulted in fuel starvation and loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98LA028
- Event ID
- 20001211X09559
- Case number
- IAD98LA028
- 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: 905d865461743dfe0765fb76720a1bc5a78238bdbcb8488a8c0124ab4eeb6354; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:02:04.648Z.