ATL99LA026 · Beech 65-A90
Beech 65-A90 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From North Perry Airport (HWO) to Cap Haitien International Airport (MTCH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA026
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 65-A90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 65
- 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
- N171TE
- Operator
- Bpi Aerospace
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Perry Airport (HWO), NORTH PERRY, FLTo Cap Haitien International Airport (MTCH), HAITI
- 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during pre-flight examination of the airplane performed the evening prior to the flight, the fuel gauges read 'around' 3/4 full. Visual examination of the tanks by the pilot revealed the tanks were not full but he believed the quantity was more than adequate to conduct his flight. While at 17000 feet MSL and approximately 60 miles from his destination, both the left engine and right engine suffered fuel exhaustion. After declaring an emergency, the pilot ditched the airplane in the Atlantic Ocean about ten miles off the coast of Isle De La Tortue, Haiti. The pilot received minor injuries and was rescued by the United States Coast Guard at 1730 the same day. Based on data obtained from the Raytheon Aircraft Company and 3/4 full fuel tanks, the total available flight time for this flight was approximately 4.00 hours. The actual flight time for this flight was 3.25 hours.
Probable cause
Inadequate preflight planning/preparation by the pilot, which resulted in fuel exhaustion due to an inadequate supply of fuel. A factor was the terrain ( water).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA026
- Event ID
- 20001211X11371
- Case number
- ATL99LA026
- 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: 55a5a73edb1e3f4d01ddb9a32183282101c43ae2ac77c27107d24fd049596546; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:38:37.279Z.