FTW03FA067 · Beech F-35
Beech F-35 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Addison Airport (ADS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03FA067
- 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 F-35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft F-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
- N3367C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Addison Airport (ADS), Addison, TXTo 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
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted trees and terrain during a forced landing after takeoff from Runway 15. According to witnesses, the airplane was traveling toward the east, at a "very low altitude," and parallel to Beltline Road. Two witnesses reported that the airplane appeared to be gliding and they could not hear the sound of the engine. The witnesses also stated that they were unable to determine if the propeller was rotating. The aircraft impacted trees and terrain with the landing gear and flaps in the retracted position. There was no post-impact fire. The airplane was last refueled on December 20, 2002 with 24.8 gallons of 100LL fuel. Examination of the right fuel system revealed that there was three gallons of fuel in the tip tanks, and twelve gallons of fuel in the auxiliary fuel tank. The left main fuel cell was breached. The fuel selector was found in the right main tank position. Flight control continuity was established. No anomalies were found with the airframe at the accident site. The engine was successfully ran to full power.
Probable cause
The pilot's mismanagement of the fuel supply by his failure to switch fuel tank positions which resulted in fuel starvation and the loss of engine power. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03FA067
- Event ID
- 20030103X00003
- Case number
- FTW03FA067
- 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: 8a0bb16e3642e59bc46b1e6252609fb4a7064ff7953d1d329c4ef3d4cdadcaee; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:32:24.364Z.