IAD00LA049 · Beech BE-55
Beech BE-55 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Chautauqua County-Dunkirk Airport (DKK) to Erie International Tom Ridge Field (ERI)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00LA049
- 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 BE-55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-55
- 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
- N777K
- Operator
- John Farrell
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chautauqua County-Dunkirk Airport (DKK), Dunkirk, NYTo Erie International Tom Ridge Field (ERI), PA
- 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
- Approach
- 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/exhaustion; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation/exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew the twin engine airplane from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Concord, North Carolina, to Dunkirk, New York. Prior to departure from Dunkirk, the pilot declined fuel servicing, and did not visually check the fuel tanks. The pilot stated that when the engines were started the left fuel indicator was between the top of the 'empty' white arc and 1/4 tank, and the right fuel indicator was between 1/4 and 1/2 tank. After a 25 minute flight, while on a straight in approach to Erie, the pilot noticed that the left fuel indicator was in the white arc and prepared for an engine failure. The pilot turned the right fuel selector handle one turn to the left in an attempt to cross-feed fuel from the right tank to both engines. Shortly thereafter, the pilot felt an engine problem and pushed all the controls full forward; however, he did not remember exactly what happened after that point. The airplane descended through trees and came to rest between two buildings. According to a fuel placard, when the right fuel selector handle was turned one click to the left, the selector was in the cross-feed mode, which allowed fuel from the left tank to cross-feed to the right engine. Another fuel placard said, 'Do not take-off if fuel quantity indication gauges indicate in yellow arc or with less than 13 gallons in each wing system.'
Probable cause
the pilot's improper fuel management which resulted in fuel starvation and a loss of power to both engines. A factor was the pilot's inadequate pre-flight planning and takeoff with inadequate fuel for the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00LA049
- Event ID
- 20001212X21247
- Case number
- IAD00LA049
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-06-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7bcd9cda8044471bb57c156019ccf2b760efa79e4b71de1e8d7694fc3632aa0f; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:12:10.772Z.