Carver Aero Beech A36 accident
Beech A36 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Davenport Municipal Airport (DVN) to Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA019
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N25496
- Operator
- Carver Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Davenport Municipal Airport (DVN), Davenport, IATo Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), Chicago, IL
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel system, fuel flow divider/distributor › Leak
- Manufacturer › Instructions, written/verbal, improper
- Manufacturer › Maintenance, overhaul, improper
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 collided with a corn crop following a loss of engine power shortly after takeoff. The pilot stated that during another flight earlier on the day of the accident, he noticed an odor of fuel. He was unable to identify the source of the smell. The airplane operated normally and the fuel flow was normal. The pilot reported that during the next flight, he was once again able to smell fuel and when climbing through 3,000 feet, the engine lost power. The pilot was unable to restart the engine. After landing in the corn field, smoke entered the cabin. Post accident inspection of the engine revealed the nozzle pressure port plug on the aft side of the fuel manifold valve was not in place, nor was it located. Blue fuel stains were evident under the left magneto and on the engine case under the right cylinders. The plug hole and the area surrounding the hole were inspected and there was no evidence of torque putty (Loctite) having been used when the plug was installed. The injector line fittings and the fuel inlet fitting had torque putty applied to them. The engine had operated 10.1 hours since it was overhauled. Continental Motors reviewed their build-up procedures for the IO-550 engines and determined that the requirement for applying Loctite to the suspect fitting had been removed from the procedures. Continental Motors subsequently issued a Quality Alert re-inserting the requirement for Loctite to be applied to the nozzle pressure port plug at installation. The procedures manual and build-up instructions for the IO-550 were also revised to include the requirement that Loctite be applied to the plug.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the improper installation of the fuel nozzle. Also causal was the engine manufacturer's improper installation instructions for the nozzle pressure port plug on the fuel manifold valve. A factor associated with the accident was the corn crop which was contacted during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA019
- Event ID
- 20031024X01810
- Case number
- CHI04LA019
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-10-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 51ab9860f73600ff5a2c216948565b279549510228d88f06cf40fdafeea29176; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:38:18.858Z.