DEN90LA073 · Beech B-60
Cebolla Beech B-60 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90LA073
- 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 B-60
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft B-60
- 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
- N6025S
- Operator
- Cebolla
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, 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
- 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 (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
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BOTH ENGINES QUIT SIMULTANEOUSLY AT 15,000 FEET MSL, DURING NORMAL IFR CRUISE FLIGHT. THE COMMERCIAL PILOT SAID HE DECLARED AN EMERGENCY AND WAS VECTORED TO THE NEAREST AIRPORT, CALHAN, COLORADO. HE RESTARTED THE RIGHT ENGINE AND CIRCLED TO TURN ON THE RADIO CONTROLLED RUNWAY LIGHTS. THE PILOT FAILED TO SEE THE RUNWAY LIGHTS AND WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE THE UNMANNED AIRPORT. HE SELECTED A ROADWAY AND LANDED. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE RIGHT WING STRUCK A FENCE, THEN THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED A DITCH AND THE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED. THE RIGHT WING, FUSELAGE, NOSE AND LANDING GEAR WERE DAMAGED AND BENT. THE PILOT SAID THE FLIGHT LEFT HOUSTON WITH FULL FUEL TANKS AND HIS COMPUTATIONS INDICATED THERE WAS ADEQUATE FUEL FOR THE FLIGHT. POST-ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE LEFT FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY AND THE RIGHT TANK CONTAINED SEVEN GALLONS OF FUEL.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION INDUCED POWER LOSS DUE TO IMPROPER INFLIGHT PLANNING AND DECISIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90LA073
- Event ID
- 20001212X22700
- Case number
- DEN90LA073
- 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 1990-03-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6c025ad7a4eaa419164466933349a12fa406f7666ba7c51eb07a1e8e1593cbba; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:43:17.403Z.