DFW05LA049 · Beech BE35
Beech BE35 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Gladewater Municipal Airport (07F) to Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport (BRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05LA049
- 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 BE35
- 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
- N860R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gladewater Municipal Airport (07F), Gladewater, TXTo Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport (BRO), Brownsville, 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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 1,172-hour pilot reported that the engine lost power when he increased manifold pressure after he leveled off at an altitude of 1,200 feet while on a night cross country flight. The pilot was able to restart the engine by adjusting the mixture and turning on the fuel boost pump; however, the engine lost power a second time. He then initiated a forced landing to an open field with the landing gear retracted. After the airplane came to rest , the pilot secured the airplane and placed the fuel selector to the "off" position. Examination of the airplane revealed there was no fuel in the auxiliary tanks, 20 gallons in the left main tank, and approximately 15 gallons in the right main fuel tank. The pilot said that he had previously experienced a loss of engine power on three different occasions in this airplane, and was able to restore power. After each of those power losses the airplane was examined by an airframe and power plant mechanic, and no deficiencies were identified. The engine was test-run under the supervision of the Safety Board. The engine started immediately and ran at various power settings without interruption for approximately 30 minutes. No mechanical deficiencies were noted.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the prevailing dark night ilumination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05LA049
- Event ID
- 20050105X00018
- Case number
- DFW05LA049
- 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 2004-12-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e4775c7832436bd8f8fc542d1c15e8b534ff8345336b6bf96269ed5cc94b3c4b; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:05:39.114Z.