FTW03LA191 · Beech 19A
Beech 19A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Gillespie County Airport (T82) to Midland Airpark (MDD)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA191
- 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 19A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 19
- 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
- N7643R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TXTo Midland Airpark (MDD), Midland, 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Induction air control, air filter/screen › Flow restricted
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The engine lost power during the initial climb through 500 feet. The pilot turned the airplane toward the airport and elected to execute a forced landing. The FAA inspector reported that the annual inspection was overdue, and that improper maintenance procedures used in the installation of the air filter and overdue annual inspection rendered the aircraft un-airworthy. Inspection of the induction system revealed that part of the filtering foam of the air filter was pinched between the filter screen and filter box. Further examination of the carburetor revealed that a 6 inch long and 1/4 inch wide piece of the filtering element was found lodged over metal vanes located at the carburetor venturi. The carburetor representative reported that: "The piece of foam would have not only reduced the airflow to the engine, but also caused the air fuel mixture to become too rich, both of which would tend to reduce power output."
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to a rich mixture and reduced airflow to the engine. Contributing factors were the owner's failure to obtain an annual inspection, and improper maintenance procedures used in the installation of the air filter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA191
- Event ID
- 20030805X01270
- Case number
- FTW03LA191
- 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: 1b1498681b3f3828417df70f0b207e43db7535c4181bd25582960842ca176447; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:50:14.197Z.