IAD02LA035 · Beechcraft C23
Beechcraft C23 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Wilmington Airport (ILG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD02LA035
- 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
Beechcraft C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N2192W
- Operator
- Sky Safety
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington Airport (ILG), Wilmington, DETo not recorded
- 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 · circling (IFR)
- 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 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(cfi) › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and private pilot were returning to their home airport after a 1.9 hour instructional flight. On final approach, the engine stopped producing power. The flight instructor took control of the airplane and landed on an embankment short of the runway. According to a police officer, who arrived on the scene an hour after the accident, the left fuel tank was found empty, and the fuel selector valve was found positioned to the left tank. The tank was not breached and there were no signs of leakage. However, fuel was observed in the right fuel tank. When the fuel selector valve was positioned to the right fuel tank, fuel flowed freely from the fuel strainer fuel line. Eighteen gallons of fuel were then drained from the right fuel tank. According to the Beechcraft Sundowner C23 Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH), the fuel selector handle was located on the floorboards between the pilot and copilot seats. According to the published before landing checklist, item 2 stated: "Fuel Selector Valve-SELECT TANK MORE NEARLY FULL (feel for detent and check visually)." No mechanical deficiencies were noted with the engine, or fuel system.
Probable cause
the flight instructor's improper fuel management which resulted in fuel starvation. A factor in the accident was the flight instructor's failure to follow the published checklist procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD02LA035
- Event ID
- 20020305X00305
- Case number
- IAD02LA035
- 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: 2213e229889af28fe9e3a75a9a9d9d21a6b7c23467d781df2ff2302c8a384986; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:41:36.432Z.