LAX08LA088 · Beech F33A
Beech F33A · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From RMN · Ramona, CA to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08LA088
- 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 F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N3133W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From RMN · Ramona, CATo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that she had leaned the mixture during cruise flight; however, she did not adjust the mixture setting prior to initiating an approach to landing. While on final approach to the runway, the engine lost power. The pilot advanced the throttle with no change in engine performance. The airplane landed hard in an open area just short of the approach end of the runway and impacted a ditch during the landing roll. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed that the firewall sustained substantial damage. The engine remained attached to the airframe by all its mounts. The engine was started and ran normally through various power settings. No anomalies were noted with the engine or airframe. The Pilot's Operating Handbook normal procedures state to enrich the mixture as required for descent and before landing.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's improper use of the mixture control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08LA088
- Event ID
- 20080609X00816
- Case number
- LAX08LA088
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: d25967f166b19092c1453582a93c5077c01e2b26a56be28bcb70fd471d144afb; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:44:31.571Z.