FTW98FA276 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to U14
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98FA276
- 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
- 2 · 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 A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N3861K
- Operator
- Garry C. Waite · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo U14
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine compartment › Fire
- Exhaust system, turbocharger › Failure, partial
- Exhaust system, turbocharger › Leak
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported to Salt Lake City ARTCC that 'I've lost an engine and the cockpit is filling with smoke.' Five minutes later the pilot reported that 'my cylinders are all blown, I've got smoke comin' through.' He stated that he would shut off the electrical power as soon as the landing gear was down. A witness observed N3861K appear from behind a one-story building flying 'what appeared to be straight up in the air, and then it veered sharply to the right, then went straight down.' The airplane had been modified with a turbonormalizing system and the installer recommended that the tailpipe be removed for internal inspection of the turbocharger every 100 hours. Postaccident examination of the turbine exhaust flange revealed a 3-inch portion was missing and the fuel selector was found on the right main fuel tank. Several items from the airplane were found outside the postimpact fire area and they exhibited fire damage: the cabin entrance door, the cargo door, a passenger's shoe, and the engine cowling. The firewall had an 18 inch hole burned through it. Toxicology tests on the pilot revealed that fluoxetine (trade name Prozac, a non-approved drug for flight status) was present in his blood.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the turbocharger exhaust stack by unknown maintenance personnel and the subsequent fire in the engine compartment due to the exhaust gas leak from the turbocharger. Factors were the total loss of engine power due to fuel line failure and subsequent fuel starvation, the pilot not following proper emergency procedures, and the loss of aircraft control due to the pilot's incapacitation following the spread of the fire to the cabin area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98FA276
- Event ID
- 20001211X10293
- Case number
- FTW98FA276
- 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 1998-06-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d4f67a052248e312929de250ffdf84a2fadd57ff309b137b86f3918249b9367c; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:32:05.129Z.