LAX91LA150 · Beech A35
Beech A35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA150
- 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 A35
- 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
- N584B
- Operator
- Mosley, Otto A · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CATo Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, OR
- 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 (mechanical 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A SEALANT BY THE NAME OF 'FUELUBE' WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR A LUBRICANT FOR THE 'O' RINGS SEALS IN THE FUEL SELECTOR/MANUAL FUEL PUMP DURING MAINTENANCE. THE PILOT STATED THAT 10 OPERATIONAL HOURS AFTER THE APPLICATION OF 'FUELUBE' HE EXPERIENCED BINDING IN THE FUEL SELECTOR WHEN HE ATTEMPTED TO CHANGE TANKS AND THE HE WAS UNABLE TO FEEL THE DETENT POSITION. HE ATTEMPTED TO CHANGED FUEL TANK WHILE ON ACROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT AND THE ENGINE FAILED FROM FUEL STARVATION. HE EXECUTED A FORCED LANDING TO AN OPEN, ROCK STREWN, FIELD THAT IMPARTED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGED TO THE AIRCRAFT DURING TOUCH DOWN.
Probable cause
THE APPLICATION OF A SEALANT INSTEAD OF A LUBRICANT TO THE INTERNAL 'O' RINGS SEALS IN THE FUEL SELECTOR BY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S INABILITY TO SELECT A FUEL SOURCE AND FUEL STARVATION THAT RESULTED IN AN ENGINE FAILURE. ROUGH TERRAIN AT THE LANDING SITE WAS ALSO A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA150
- Event ID
- 20001212X16644
- Case number
- LAX91LA150
- 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: 6fa3ffff818f676a14317f555590fa16cc39cd10bec87625adf782ae05773f9b; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:29:28.701Z.