NYC03LA155 · Beech BE-56TC
Beech BE-56TC · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB) to Watertown International Airport (ART)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA155
- 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 BE-56TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-56
- 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
- N156DK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB), Parkersburg, WVTo Watertown International Airport (ART), Watertown, NY
- 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
- Partial 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
- Lubricating system, oil line › Loose
- 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 completely fueled the airplane prior to departure. After takeoff, while climbing through 16,000 feet msl, to reach a cruising altitude of 23,000 feet, the left manifold pressure gauge began to fluctuate. The pilot then noticed oil streaking from the left engine cowling, and shut down the left engine. The pilot notified ATC and began to fly back toward the departure airport; however, about 1 minute 40 seconds after securing the left engine, the right engine experienced a total loss of engine power. The pilot stated that he had not touched the right fuel selector prior to the loss of power in the right engine. The pilot attempted to restart the right engine using a checklist and cross-feeding the right engine to the left main fuel tank, but the right engine did not restart. With no success to restart the right engine, the pilot attempted to restart the left engine, but was unable to do so. During the restart attempts, the airplane's engine driven vacuum instruments failed, which included the attitude indicator. The ATC controller was providing the pilot vectors toward an ILS approach to a suitable alternate airport. Due to instrument meteorological conditions between 1,200 feet and 14,500 feet, the controller had to provide no-gyro turns to the pilot in an attempt to maintain a safe attitude. The pilot was unable to glide to the runway, and performed a forced landing to a field about 3 miles south of the alternate airport. Examination of the left engine revealed that the oil line was found separated from the number two cylinder, but the threads remained intact. The number six cylinder exhibited damage consistent with oil starvation. However, no discrepancies were noted with the right engine.
Probable cause
A total loss of power in the right engine for undetermined reasons. A factor was a partial loss of power in the left engine due to a loose oil line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA155
- Event ID
- 20030716X01113
- Case number
- NYC03LA155
- 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: 220c4bd665519578919bcc9c6cef2a6d283c8667dee39236cafb49c174e77d3b; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:25:27.719Z.