MIA02LA018 · Beech P35
Beech P35 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From North Perry Airport (HWO) to Sebring Regional Airport (SEF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA018
- 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 P35
- 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
- N9754Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Perry Airport (HWO), Pembroke Pines, FLTo Sebring Regional Airport (SEF), Sebring, FL
- 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
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 said he had been airborne for about 20 minutes and looked at the JPI indicator which showed that the oil temperature was 89 degrees and the oil pressure was zero. He said he then entered a turn to go to State Road 84 and execute an emergency landing, and during the turn a loud bang occurred and the engine ceased operating. He then saw a dirt road about 15 miles southwest of State Road 84, and executed a forced landing there instead, but during the landing rollout the left wing tip impacted a pick-up truck that had been parked on the dirt road and it veered into a ditch. The FAA Inspector who responded to the accident scene found clean oil on the bottom of the fuselage, but did not determine the source of the oil leak. The following day when salvage personnel returned to the accident scene to retrieve the airplane wreckage for a detailed examination, they found that the airplane had burned. The engine compartment and aft, to include the cabin and inboard two thirds of both wings had incurred fire damage. Only the wing tips and empennage remained undamaged. Examination of the engine revealed that the rear and right side of the engine had incurred fire damage. In addition, the examination showed that there was an opening in the engine case at the No. 4 cylinder position, and the No. 4 connecting rod was protruding through the opening. Both the No. 4 and No 5 connecting rods had separated from the crankshaft, and both connecting rods as well as all main bearings exhibited signatures consistent with oil starvation.
Probable cause
The loss of engine oil for undetermined reasons that resulted in the engine seizing, a forced landing on a dirt road, and an impact with a vehicle on the dirt road during the landing rollout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA018
- Event ID
- 20011121X02281
- Case number
- MIA02LA018
- 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: db502f9e29a10d2130e4f18c5fd493308f5ea739d1525780df030ae09f118828; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:43:49.496Z.