LAX00FA151 · Beech B36TC
Beech B36TC · Accident during initial climb
From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00FA151
- 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
- 1 · 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 B36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N6791P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Stall/spin; Wire, transmission
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The single engine airplane impacted a house after experiencing a loss of control while returning to land. The commercial pilot reported to air traffic controllers that the cabin door came open during takeoff. The pilot was attempting to return the airplane to the departure runway when the air traffic controller heard the pilot's voice say, "Emergency, I've got . . ." Witnesses observed black smoke emanating from the exhaust stack. One witness observed the airplane flying low and slow at a high angle of attack with the landing gear extended. He then observed the airplane stall and spin, rotating 1.5 times before losing site of the airplane. Another witness, who was located near the accident site, stated the engine stopped making noise prior to the accident. The airplane impacted a power line and home in a residential area. No anomalies were noted with the airplane and engine that would have prevented its operation; however, the engine did display signatures of operation with an excessively rich mixture. The auxiliary fuel pump, which was unguarded and located adjacent to the landing gear selector switch, was found in the HI position. Operation with the auxiliary fuel pump in the HI position, with an operative engine-driven fuel pump, can result in a complete loss of engine power once the pilot reduced power for landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while in the traffic pattern, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin. Contributing factor was the pilot's diverted attention with the loss of engine power from his inadvertent activation of the auxiliary fuel pump, and the open cabin door.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00FA151
- Event ID
- 20001212X20834
- Case number
- LAX00FA151
- 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, coordinates. 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: b00a0ba240f5fd13f6d2d19f1e0686cb3c05d8686af8fe695608899649bd5789; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:20:38.787Z.