Mid America Airways Beech E55 accident
Beech E55 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84LA048
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 E55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 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
- N911J
- Operator
- Mid America Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TX
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Descent, not identified
- Pilot in command › Fatigue
- Pilot in command › Fuel system, inattentive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A FLT, LATE AT NIGHT, THE PLT TURNED ON THE HEATER. ABOUT 40 TO 45 MI NORTH OF THE LEONA VOR, HE REPORTEDLY ENGAGED THE AUTOPLT & BEGAN WORKING ON THE FLT LOGS. ABOUT 50 MI FURTHER NORTH, THE ACFT FLEW INTO A FIELD IN A WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE. THE PLT COULD NOT RECALL ANYTHING ABOUT THE TIME FROM ENGAGEMENT OF THE AUTOPILOT UNTIL IMPACT. AN EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED THE AUX FUEL TANKS WERE EMPTY & NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL FLOW DIVIDER OR FUEL INJECTOR LINES. ALSO, THE PROP BLADES WERE BENT AFT. THE PLT SUSPECTED CARBON MONXIDE FROM THE HEATER. HOWEVER, AN EXAM OF THE HEATER REVEALED IT WAS WELL WITHIN PUBLISHED PARAMETERS & HAD NO SIGNIFICANT DISCREPANCIES. THE PLT WAS ALSO EMPLOYED AS A CONSTRUCTION SUPERVISOR DURING THE DAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84LA048
- Event ID
- 20001214X45065
- Case number
- FTW84LA048
- 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: 2d45c2f91be31e6b38c4c7537da5efb6afb9c5b1441615304849d0e2ef278a5f; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:51:39.237Z.