DFW05LA105 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Brownwood Regional Airport (BWD) to City of Murfreesboro Airport (MBT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05LA105
- 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 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
- N4311S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brownwood Regional Airport (BWD), Brownwood, TXTo City of Murfreesboro Airport (MBT), Murfreesboro, TN
- 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
- 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
- Fluid, oil › Starvation/exhaustion
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A 7,378-hour Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) reported that they had just departed the airport and established a cruise-climb, with a 752-hour private pilot at the controls, and one passenger in the rear of the airplane. During the cruise-climb the engine went to full rpm, and then the ATP noticed that the engine oil pressure indicated zero. During the attempted return to the airport, the engine seized and the private pilot turned the controls over to the ATP. The ATP executed a forced landing in a field 4-miles east of the departure airport. Examination of the engine by an NTSB investigator revealed that the oil filter was improperly installed, and the O-ring at the base of the filter was broken. Additionally, the oil filter's adapter plate was found cracked, which allowed the engine oil to be pumped overboard while in flight.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the improper installation of the oil filter resulting in oil starvation and eventual seizure of the engine. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05LA105
- Event ID
- 20050421X00492
- Case number
- DFW05LA105
- 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: 63f850a088c1887e7b78676ed01206f961ae60e00f0b89c7d621ad63a52c3e4b; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:02:49.898Z.