NYC07LA144 · Beech T-34A
Beech T-34A · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to Laurinburg Maxton Airport (MEB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07LA144
- 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 T-34A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft T-34
- 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
- N55192
- Operator
- Thomas N. Soodsma · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PATo Laurinburg Maxton Airport (MEB), Maxton, NC
- 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the airplane turned base leg for the runway, about 650 feet above ground level (agl), the engine suddenly lost all power. The pilot switched the fuel selector from the right fuel tank to the left fuel tank, and activated the fuel boost pump; however, the engine did not restart. He subsequently performed a forced landing in a field just prior to the runway. The fuel injected engine had accumulated 208 total hours of operation, and approximately 10 hours of operation since the airplane's last annual inspection. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions. The left and right wing fuel tanks remained intact, and approximately 10 gallons of fuel remained in both tanks. The wreckage was subsequently shipped to a repair facility, where a test run of the engine was performed. During the test run, the engine started on the first attempt, and ran continuously without hesitation.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07LA144
- Event ID
- 20070626X00813
- Case number
- NYC07LA144
- 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: 3b04a8888551cb8ba6469701a465d489cd0235db5f821e1d33288857130479a6; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:44:48.771Z.