FTW02LA008 · Beech C90
Beech C90 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Taos Regional Airport (SKX) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA008
- 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
- 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 C90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- 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
- N690JP
- Operator
- George Reynolds & Peter Baldwin
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Taos Regional Airport (SKX), Taos, NMTo 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 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 final
- 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 exhaustion; Wire, transmission; 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot flew the airplane on a cross-country flight of at least 2 hours and 47 minutes before dropping of his passengers, and flew back for 2 hours and 7 minutes without refueling. The pilot reported that as the airplane turned onto final approach, the right engine began to surge. He reduced the power on the right engine and increased power on the left, but the airplane started to roll right so he elected to reduce the power on the left engine and land in an alley. Prior to impacting wires, the pilot retracted the landing gear and brought the condition levers to "cut-off." A witness observed the airplane prior to impact and noted that the "motor wasn't on." The airplane impacted power lines, a tree, a natural gas meter, two residences, and a fence. The fuel tanks were compromised during the impact sequence, and the fire department sprayed the area with fire retardant foam. A test of the water runoff revealed "negative results for petroleum risk." Examination of both engines' fuel lines between their respective firewalls and fuel heaters, and fuel pumps and fuel control units revealed that they were void of fuel.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to refuel the airplane, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent loss of dual engine power while on approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA008
- Event ID
- 20011012X02082
- Case number
- FTW02LA008
- 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: f38f4ae07c3626e4f4816d04fec6ed49a7f55d187bcc95a3a07650f4726adba4; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:47:13.094Z.