DEN08LA121 · Cessna 337G
Cessna 337G · Accident: fuel contamination during takeoff
From Point Lookout, MO to Lansing Municipal Airport (IGQ)
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
- DEN08LA121
- 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
Cessna 337G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N53661
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Point Lookout, MOTo Lansing Municipal Airport (IGQ), Lansing Mun Apt, IL
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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 contamination
- 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Heavy rains and thunderstorms were present over the airport the three days prior to the accident. The pilot identified water in the left fuel tank during preflight and sumped the tank until he no longer saw any water. During the takeoff, as the main wheels were lifting off, the forward engine quit. Unable to climb, the pilot aborted the takeoff and shutdown both engines, but was unable to stop the airplane before the airplane went off the end of the runway and down a steep, rocky embankment. Examination of the airplane revealed that the left wing spar was bent up and both wings rear attach points were broken. Water was found in the left fuel tank and forward engine fuel system. A broken seal was found around the recessed fuel fill port adapter plate and filler flange.
Probable cause
A fuel flange seal leak and water in the fuel resulting in a loss of engine power during takeoff. Contributing to the accident was an inadequate preflight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08LA121
- Event ID
- 20080716X01055
- Case number
- DEN08LA121
- 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, 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: f319319738560f019639c31b75434f936bef604144d74fce28ab9128a4e34e8e; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:54:53.499Z.