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MIA01FA192 · Beech BE-35-F35

21 Jul 2001 · Bamberg, SC, United States

Beech BE-35-F35 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb

From Bamberg County Airport (99N) to 73J · Beaufort, SC

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Event

NTSB case
MIA01FA192
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
1 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
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-35-F35

Aircraft type
Beechcraft BE-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
N5058S
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Bamberg County Airport (99N), Bamberg, SCTo 73J · Beaufort, SC
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
Initial climb
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
Stall/spin
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

  • Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot had flown the airplane in to have maintenance performed at the airport, on June 12, 2001, and returned to pick up the airplane on the morning of July 21, 2001. There was no one at the airport that could say they observed the pilot perform a pre-flight inspection before he got into the airplane. He departed about 2 minutes after paying his bill. Witnesses heard a rough running engine, and observed the airplane reach an altitude of 200-300 feet above ground level, clear wires at the departure end of the runway, turn to the left with the left wing almost perpendicular to the ground, the nose went down, the airplane impacted into a cotton field and burst into flames. A witness said, "it stalled and came straight down." Examination of the engine did not disclose evidence of mechanical malfunction. Toxicology test showed that the following drugs were found in the pilot's blood, liver, and kidney: Propoxyphene, Norpropoxyphene, Fluoxetine, and Norfluoxetine. Medical records revealed that the pilot was taking prescribed medication for "frequent or severe headaches." It is likely that the pilot was impaired at the time of the accident by the effects of propoxyphene, and possibly by the effects of narcotic dependence.

Probable cause

the failure of the pilot to maintain airspeed, while attempting a forced landing following a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin, and subsequent impact with the terrain. A factor in this accident was impairment due to drugs/medication.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA01FA192
Event ID
20010730X01554
Case number
MIA01FA192
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, coordinates. 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: 513031f990b4680fc24f07838b477369eb6d683a2ee43f0ff3eb6aa39fb85ac1; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:27:03.446Z.