FTW04LA071 · Beech BE-23
Beech BE-23 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From M39 · Mena, AR to Ellington Airport (EFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA071
- 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-23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-23
- 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
- N234DD
- Operator
- Joe Anthony Salvato
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M39 · Mena, ARTo Ellington Airport (EFD), Houston, 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
- 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
After takeoff from runway 17 (a 6,000-foot-long and 100-foot-wide asphalt runway), the 5,625-hour air transport pilot made a left downwind departure and climbed to an altitude of 2,000 feet above ground level (agl), when the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to re-start the engine, but was unsuccessful. He turned left and aligned the airplane with the runway while descending. The pilot flew along the length of the runway, but never landed. As the airplane approached the end of the runway, he aligned the airplane with a taxiway, but decided to turn and land in an open clearing, where it struck trees and power lines. The engine was run on the airframe with the original bent propeller still installed for five minutes. After installation of a new propeller, and the engine was started, it ran continuously at various power settings without interruption. No mechanical deficiencies were noted. The airplane was out of annual inspection, and was being ferried to Houston, Texas where it was scheduled to undergo an annual inspection. The FAA issued the ferry permit based on the belief that the airplane had undergone an annual inspection over a year ago. Further examination revealed that the airplane had not received an annual inspection since 1988. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and the pilot's misjudgment of altitude and distance during the forced landing which resulted in a collision with trees and transmission wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA071
- Event ID
- 20040217X00194
- Case number
- FTW04LA071
- 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: 9a51dab0e6005b8954e734fef7b91d15c62aec0293769db4901976cb94be97c6; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:59:01.729Z.