MIA00LA032 · Beech 90
Beech 90 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From 6J2 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA032
- 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 90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- 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
- N866A
- Operator
- Blue Sky Adventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6J2To 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was at 12,500 feet, preparing for a four-mile parachute jump run, when he had initial indications of a power/fuel problem. He said he told the skydivers to exit, then initiated a descending spiral to land, during which time the fuel flow became erratic. He said both engines ceased operating at 3,000 feet, and he did not account for the northwest wind, and crashed short of the runway. The FAA inspector who conducted a postcrash examination of the accident airplane said that he found no usable fuel in the tanks, and there were no other indications of the presence of fuel at the accident site. Detailed examinations of the fuel systems and both engines showed that residual fuel remained, and revealed no indications of pre-accident malfunction or mechanical failure.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper preflight planning/preparation and failure to ensure adequate fuel to safely complete the flight resulting in fuel exhaustion and engine failure, and his inadequate compensation for the wind that resulted a forced landing short of the runway and substantial damage to the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA032
- Event ID
- 20001212X20144
- Case number
- MIA00LA032
- 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: 75ade5a3e6938626b853c4cdf93203aae8ea11c86584d204e4f67fe11de34984; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:37:24.328Z.