SEA93LA051 · Beech 58P
Montelena Associates Beech 58P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Watts Woodland Airport (O41) to Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93LA051
- 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 58P
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N550TH
- Operator
- Montelena Associates
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Watts Woodland Airport (O41), Woodland, CATo Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB), Pueblo, CO
- 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 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
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISING FLIGHT, THE PILOT NOTICED THAT THE GAUGES INDICATED A FUEL IMBALANCE. AS THE IMBALANCE INDICATION BECAME GREATER, THE PILOT BEGAN TO SEARCH FOR A SUITABLE NEARBY ALTERNATE. FINDING THE NEAREST ALTERNATE TO BE BELOW APPROACH MINIMUMS, AND BEING CONVINCED THAT THE IMBALANCE WAS ONLY AN INDICATION PROBLEM, HE ELECTED TO CONTINUE ON TO THE ORIGINAL DESTINATION. WHEN BOTH ENGINES QUIT, THE LEFT GAUGE WAS AT 0, AND THE RIGHT GAUGE WAS INDICATING NEAR FULL. DURING THE RESTART ATTEMPTS, THE PILOT FAILED TO SELECT EITHER ENGINE TO THE RIGHT FUEL TANK, WHICH WAS LATER FOUND TO CONTAIN FUEL. WHEN EXAMINED AT THE SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT, THE POSITION OF BOTH FUEL VALVES CORRECTLY MATCHED THE POSITION OF THE CORRESPONDING FUEL SELECTOR LEVER. FURTHER INVESTIGATION REVEALED NO MALFUNCTION, DAMAGE, OR DISCREPANCIES WITH EITHER VALVE.
Probable cause
AN IMPROPER FUEL SELECTOR VALVE POSITION, FUEL STARVATION, AND INADEQUATE REMEDIAL ACTION. FACTORS INCLUDE SOFT, ROUGH TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93LA051
- Event ID
- 20001211X11756
- Case number
- SEA93LA051
- 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: 66755c671f2e1063ac2ef6d614cec0f541662756e14b71916242bc56c302ef34; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:23:27.310Z.