LAX05LA209 · Beechcraft K35
Beechcraft K35 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05LA209
- 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
Beechcraft K35
- 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
- N3067C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CA
- 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 · 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not selected
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
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's wing collided with a post during a forced landing on a road after a loss of engine power, and the airplane went into a ditch. The pilot was on a cross-country flight when the engine began sputtering. The pilot thought that he had a fuel problem. The fuel pressure began to vary. The pilot switched fuel tanks, turned on the auxiliary fuel pump, and richened the mixture. He noted that the fuel flow stabilized briefly, and then it started varying again. Shortly thereafter, the engine quit, and the pilot made a forced landing on a dirt road. At that time, he turned the fuel pump off, and made the landing with the gear down and flaps extended. The airplane touched down successfully on the main landing gear. During the rollout, a wing clipped a metal post, which spun the airplane into a ditch. The nose wheel collapsed, and the wing sustained substantial damage. Recovery personnel drained 15 gallons of fuel from each of the main wing tanks. They found no fuel in the auxiliary fuel tanks, which can contain a maximum of 19 gallons of usable fuel according to the manufacturer's systems description. Post accident examination revealed that the fuel selector was in the auxiliary fuel tank position. The fuel boost pump was in the emergency or HI position. A fuel supply was plumbed into the left wing fuel inlet. The engine was started, and it ran smoothly at various power settings for 15 minutes, including several times at full power. The engine displayed good response to throttle movements and exhibited no hesitation.
Probable cause
fuel starvation due to the pilot's inadequate in-flight fuel system management and failure to set the fuel selector valve to a tank containing fuel. A factor was the ditch that the aircraft encountered.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05LA209
- Event ID
- 20050708X00968
- Case number
- LAX05LA209
- 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: 28b91b07dd02cc0f71f0e1802bbab3b5b3911d811577cd7083aaeae330011328; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:59:25.084Z.