ATL87LA078 · Beech 23
D & R Cropspraying Service Beech 23 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during landing
From Statesboro Bulloch County Airport (TBR) to 2J7 · Waynesboro, GA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87LA078
- 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 23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N2355Z
- Operator
- D & R Cropspraying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Statesboro Bulloch County Airport (TBR), Swainsboro, GATo 2J7 · Waynesboro, GA
- 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
- Landing
- 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 contamination; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS FLOWN FROM A PVT STRIP TO A NRBY ARPT AT STATESBORO, GA FOR REFUELING. AFTER THE ACFT WAS REFUELED, THE ENGLOST PWR AS THE STUDENT PLT WAS TAXIING TO TAKEOFF. WATER WAS FND IN THE SUMPS, & RPRTDLY, 4 TO 6 SAMPLES WERE REQUIRED TO DRAIN WATER FROM EACH TANK. AFTER THE ENG WAS STARTED, THE ACFT WAS RPRDLY FLOWN TO SWAINSBORO, GA, THEN THE PLT TOOKOFF ON A FLT TO WAYNESBORO, GA WITH A PAX ABOARD. HE RPRTDLY MISSED HIS DESTN ARPT & STARTED AN APCH TO LAND AT BUSH FIELD AT AUGUSTA, GA. WHILE ON THE APCH, THE ENG LOST PWR & THE STUDENT PLT WAS UNABLE TO RESTART IT. DURING AN EMERG LANDING, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & BOTH WINGS WERE EXTENSIVELY DAMAGED. A POST-CRASH EXAM REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A MECHANICAL FAILURE. FLUID THAT WAS DRAINED FROM THE CARBURETOR & GASCOLATOR WAS MOSTLY WATER. THE STUDENT PLT NOTED THAT THE ACFT'S FUEL TANKS HAD A TENDENCY TO ACCUMULATE WATER WHEN THE ACFT WAS PARKED FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME; HOWEVER, THE SOURCE OF THE WATER WAS NOT VERIFIED. A CHECK OF THE STUDENT PLT'S BLOOD SHOWED AN ALCOHOL LVL OF 0.262%.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87LA078
- Event ID
- 20001213X30364
- Case number
- ATL87LA078
- 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 1987-03-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 549e514a1a7ee3b6dbea2a4bd2bdcd9953ce88c48cb15f4d0a681f1cf6a5f0dd; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:40:13.463Z.