ATL05FA135 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during an emergency descent
From The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU) to Rock Hill - York County Airport (UZA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05FA135
- 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
- 2 · 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 V35B
- 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
- N9JQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU), Columbus, OHTo Rock Hill - York County Airport (UZA), Rockhill, SC
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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 (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(cfi) › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Approximately four miles away from destination airport the pilot canceled the instrument flight plan and continued the flight under visual flight rules. Review of radar data revealed the flight continued 10 miles southwest of the destination airport, and was observed maneuvering before returning to the airport. Witnesses approximately a mile away from the airport reported that the engine was cutting in and out, and subsequently lost power. The airplane descended until it was below a nearby tree line. First responders to the crash site reported that the downed airplane was located in a subdivision one mile southwest of the Rock Hill Airport. The post accident examination of the fuel system revealed that there was no fuel found in the fuel lines from the main tanks to the fuel (mechanical) pump. Fuel selector was found in the left tip tank position. The electrical cross feed selector switch was in the off position. No fuel was found in the left tip tank, and the left tip tank was not breached. According to the certified fight instructor, he did not remember or recall any details of the actual flight nor of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's mismanagement of the fuel supply , which resulted in fuel starvation and subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05FA135
- Event ID
- 20050801X01123
- Case number
- ATL05FA135
- 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: e34e0402dd458cb6d11c4df286aa4e2b89b4ba9896c905649b226e07a20ae2fd; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:58:00.122Z.