FTW99LA003 · Beech M35
Beech M35 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Clinton Regional Airport (CLK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA003
- 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 M35
- 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
- N9838R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clinton Regional Airport (CLK), Clinton, OKTo not recorded
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted terrain following a forced landing resulting from a loss of engine power while in cruise flight. The airplane underwent 'extensive' modification and repair for five to six months prior to the flight. Several maintenance personnel, who were working on the airplane the morning of the accident, stated that the pilot wanted the airplane back, even though he was told that maintenance was not complete. Also, one maintenance person reported that the pilot said, 'no matter what, I'm pulling this airplane out and flying to Albuquerque.' After about 30 minutes of flight, the engine 'quit.' The left wing tank fuel quantity gauge indicated '3/4 full.' The pilot then switched the fuel tank selector switch from the left main wing tank to the right main wing tank and attempted to restart the engine, but was unsuccessful. He then tried to restart the engine with the auxiliary tank selected, but was unsuccessful. A forced landing was executed to a paved, country road. The airplane veered to the right into a ditch, subsequently the right wing dug into the ground and turned the airplane 180 degrees into a ditch.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation. Factors were; the pilot's self induced pressure to fly the aircraft when maintenance had not been completed, poor judgement by the pilot to commence and continue flight with known deficiencies in the aircraft, and the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA003
- Event ID
- 20001211X11255
- Case number
- FTW99LA003
- 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: 4c47cbf3406594f824df3a97dac832375595cafcb46b772b337845c8d8ff7775; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:35:32.135Z.