LAX02LA077 · Beech T-34B/D-45
Beech T-34B/D-45 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Lemoore Naval Air Station (Reeves Field) Airport (NLC) to Lemoore Naval Air Station (Reeves Field) Airport (NLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA077
- 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 T-34B/D-45
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft T-34
- 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
- N34NL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lemoore Naval Air Station (Reeves Field) Airport (NLC), Lemoore, CATo Lemoore Naval Air Station (Reeves Field) Airport (NLC)
- 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 (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
- 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
- Fuel system, drain › Open
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane lost engine power during cruise, made an emergency landing, and collided with a fence. The pilot conducted a preflight of the airplane and noted that the left and right fuel tanks were filled to the "caps." He noted no discrepancies with the airplane or fuel system during the preflight inspection. After flying for about 2 hours the airplane experienced a complete loss of engine power. While established on final for a road, he discovered that he was unable to slow down enough to avoid oncoming traffic and maneuvered the airplane to the right of the road. The left gear contacted the asphalt and the airplane continued through a cattle fence, collapsing the nose landing gear. U.S. Navy search and rescue personnel responded to the accident site, and noted that there was no fuel in the fuel tanks. The pilot did not have the fuel valve open during preflight. He was only able to get a small sample of fuel from the low point drain (LPD), which was the residual fuel in the lines from the previous flight. The pilot inadvertently locked the LPD in the up (open) position during preflight, which would result in fuel leaking from the airplane once he turned the fuel valve on.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight of the airplane in which he failed to close the fuel drain resulting in a fuel leak and fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA077
- Event ID
- 20020207X00199
- Case number
- LAX02LA077
- 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: dd6460cebf97c0df628f03568c64a876890a3681024a291d4559f05461c864f7; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:08:35.699Z.