DEN93LA001 · Beech F33A
Denver Air Center Beech F33A · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From CO to Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93LA001
- 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 F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N4532S
- Operator
- Denver Air Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From COTo Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL), FT. COLLINS, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CLIMB OVER A 12,000 FOOT MOUNTAIN RANGE FOLLOWING TAKEOFF, THE PILOT STATED THE ENGINE WAS NOT DEVELOPING SUFFICIENT POWER SO HE ELECTED TO TURN TOWARDS LOWER TERRAIN. THE ENGINE THEN FAILED TOTALLY AND A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE IN HIGH VEGETATION NEXT TO A HAY FIELD. DURING LANDING SLIDE, THE LEFT WING STRUCK A DITCH. EXAMINATION PROVIDED EVIDENCE OF NO FUEL IN THE LINES OR STRAINER AND ONLY TRACES OF FUEL IN THE FUEL CONTROL. A TEST RUN OF THE ENGINE PRODUCED NORMAL ENGINE OPERATION. THE WINGS CONTAINED WHAT THE SALVAGE CREW DESCRIBED AS ADEQUATE FUEL FOR OPERATION, AND THE HAY FIELD WAS DESCRIBED AS SUITABLE FOR A NORMAL LANDING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S SELECTION OF AN UNSUITABLE LANDING AREA WHEN A SUITABLE FORCED LANDING AREA WAS AVAILABLE. A FACTOR WAS: FUEL STARVATION FOR UNKNOWN REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93LA001
- Event ID
- 20001211X15851
- Case number
- DEN93LA001
- 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: 625a018a3cb47cc6723d2e59c0eb8424cf489c2fa62252df8add070a4f594966; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:06:51.027Z.