ATL07CA068 · Beech D50E
Magnolia Flight Services Beech D50E · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Augusta Regional At Bush Field (AGS) to General Dewitt Spain Airport (M01)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA068
- 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 D50E
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 50
- 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
- N107WB
- Operator
- Magnolia Flight Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Augusta Regional At Bush Field (AGS), Augusta, GATo General Dewitt Spain Airport (M01), Memphis, 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 · 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on the cross country flight using the fuel from both main fuel tanks. Approximately one half hour into the flight the pilot stated that he switched both engines to the auxiliary fuel tanks. Two hours into the flight the right engine ran out of fuel. He switched the right fuel selector back to the main tank and turned on the electric boost pump. The engine surged and quit again. The pilot contacted air traffic control for a heading to the nearest airport and turned 180 degrees toward Pryor Field, Decatur, Alabama. The left engine stopped, and he turned the left engine fuel selector to the left main tank. He turned on the electric fuel boost pump and the engine failed to start. The pilot advised air traffic control that he had a fuel problem, and would not make it to the airport. He feathered the propellers and made an emergency landing in a field. After the forced landing the pilot and occupants exited the airplane uninjured. The pilot inspected both right fuel tanks and found both tanks empty. He inspected the left auxiliary tank and found it full and the left main was found with a lot of fuel. He reported that when he switched the fuel tanks to auxiliary positions he must have accidentally place the left fuel selector in the cross feed position.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management resulting in failure of both engines due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA068
- Event ID
- 20070524X00632
- Case number
- ATL07CA068
- 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: c7d51a99d0347999c2f32d2da2c41e52468f49e36416b985755659e8f7aefaa5; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:55:33.796Z.