DEN89LA062 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA062
- 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 V35B
- 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
- N1721W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)To Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)
- 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 · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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 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 › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CFI RATED PLT WAS PERFORMING A SALES-DEMONSTRATION FLIGHT WITH TWO PAX. THE LEFT SEAT PAX WAS FLYING. THE CONTROL TOWER HAD CLEARED THE FLIGHT TO LAND ON RWY 29R, A 7,498 X 100 FT ASPHALT RWY, WITH WINDS REPORTED AS 190 DEGREES AT 6 KNOTS. THE CFI SAID THAT JUST PRIOR TO TURNING BASE, THE ENGINE STOPPED. THE CFI TOOK THE CONTROLS AND ATTEMPTED A RESTART, TO NO AVAIL. THE CFI FIRST RETRACTED THE LANDING GEAR, TO CLEAR OBSTACLES, THEN EXTENDED THE LANDING GEAR TO ABSORB LANDING IMPACT. THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN 600 FEET SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. THE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED DURING ROLL OUT AND THE ACFT CAME TO REST 400 FEET FROM THE APPROACH END OF RWY 29R. POST ACDNT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS ON THE RGT FUEL TANK AND THE RGT TANK WAS EMPTY. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL LINES OR FUEL PUMP. BOTH PAX SAID THE FUEL PRESS DROPPED TO ZERO WHEN THE ENG QUIT.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION DUE TO IMPROPER FUEL TANK SELECTIOR OPERATION BY THE PILOT. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: UNPREPARED (ROUGH/UNEVEN) TERRAIN SHORT OF THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA062
- Event ID
- 20001213X27573
- Case number
- DEN89LA062
- 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: 51d3b0584a5020331a86f779aac0b73d2da7ac6c3ae58ee1b8b712f23d42c6eb; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:18:17.836Z.