SEA08LA012 · Beech F35
Beech F35 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From San Carlos Airport (SQL) to HYD · Hayward, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA012
- 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 F35
- 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
- N5050B
- Operator
- Robert M. Fisher · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Carlos Airport (SQL), San Carlos, CATo HYD · Hayward, 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After leveling off at 1,000 feet over a salt water bay for the short repositioning flight, the engine lost power. Attempts by the pilot to restart the engine proved unsuccessful, prompting him to ditch the airplane in the salt water bay. The airplane was recovered from the salt water environment about 24 hours after the ditching. The engine subsequently underwent two examinations, the first of which resulted in the engine running for a period of 5 seconds before losing power. A second later attempted test run was unsuccessful due to the effects of the extensive degree of salt water contamination and corrosion. A visual inspection of the engine failed to reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane had just come out of its most recent annual inspection the day prior to the accident, and maintenance records indicated the engine had accumulated 60.20 hours since its most recent overhaul. The pilot reported that prior to takeoff the fuel selector was positioned on the left main tank, and that 60 to 65 gallons of fuel was on board.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA012
- Event ID
- 20071102X01709
- Case number
- SEA08LA012
- 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. 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: cd74df996ea22393f199c815e6ae9c3cdc6f65454b3da412f2343f2faa75f789; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:18:39.784Z.