FTW03LA129 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Aero Valley Airport (52F) to Ennis Municipal Airport (F41)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA129
- 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 V35B
- 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
- N390BC
- Operator
- Thomas Hollister
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aero Valley Airport (52F), Roanoke, TXTo Ennis Municipal Airport (F41), Ennis, 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
- En route · climb to 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Upon accepting a clearance to climb to 3,500 feet msl the pilot increased power. As power was increased, the pilot noticed on the engine data management unit that there were "no bars illuminated for cylinder number 5." The pilot reported to Dallas-Fort Worth air traffic control that the airplane was experiencing engine problems and requested to divert to the nearest airport. Upon receiving directions to the nearest airport, the pilot noticed cylinder #4 "had no readout." He advised air traffic control that he was unable to make the airport and initiated a forced landing. During the landing flare, "airspeed bled so fast that the stall horn beeped and the airplane seemed to accelerate toward the ground." Subsequently, the airplane landed hard and came to rest upright in a grass field. Examination of the airframe fuel filter revealed that the fuel filter screen displayed evidence of corrosion, and the housing was full of fuel. Examination of the fuel manifold revealed the topside of the screen contained debris, the #3 fuel nozzle was blocked with contaminants, and debris was found in the #4, #5, and #6 fuel. The #1 manifold to fuel nozzle fuel line was found partially blocked.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to corrosion and contamination of the fuel system, and the partially blocked fuel lines and nozzles.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA129
- Event ID
- 20030414X00503
- Case number
- FTW03LA129
- 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: 26805ad82613230249ee6ffee31e5c700ce670e5dd21cb8694fce7090e4aeef1; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:30:35.758Z.