ANC08FA104 · Beech 95-B55
Beech 95-B55 · Accident: fuel exhaustion en route
From Gustavus Airport (GST) to Sitka Rocky Gutierrez Airport (SIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08FA104
- 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
- 2 · 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 95-B55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N98HA
- Operator
- Harold J. Gaines · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gustavus Airport (GST), Gustavus, AKTo Sitka Rocky Gutierrez Airport (SIT), Sitka, AK
- 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot departed on an instrument-flight-rules (IFR), cross-country flight after obtaining fuel. The next planned fuel stop was about 741.5 nautical miles away. IFR weather conditions prevailed along the flight, but visual conditions existed at the next airport, where the pilot landed in order to obtain fuel. The pilot subsequently departed and contacted an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) specialist to say that he was unable to refuel at that airport. He then requested a clearance to another airport, about 83.4 nautical miles away, and stated: “I hope we have enough fuel.” The ARTCC specialist offered a closer airport that was about 36 miles east. The pilot requested a clearance for the Localizer-Type Directional Aid (LDA) approach to the closer airport. During the initial stages of the approach, the pilot appeared to be unsure about the LDA approach procedures, and was unable to join the localizer for the approach. The ARTCC specialist asked the pilot if he wanted to try another approach, and the pilot said that he wanted to continue on to the airport that was 83.4 miles away instead. About 1 hour after the airplane had departed in search of additional fuel, and about 2 minutes before the accident, the ARTCC specialist contacted the pilot to request an estimate of his remaining fuel. The pilot’s last garbled radio transmission was: "Looks like we're having trouble with our left engine." A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter located the airplane's wreckage in an area of mountainous, tree-covered terrain along the anticipated flight route. A responding state trooper reported that the airplane's fuel tanks were empty. Fuel consumption calculations disclosed that the estimated fuel remaining when the airplane arrived at the destination airport (where fuel was not available) was equivalent to about 1 hour and 11 minutes flight time at a cruise power setting. No mechanical problems with the airplane were discovered during postaccident inspections by the NTSB.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power in flight due to fuel exhaustion resulting from the pilot's inadequate fuel planning and navigation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08FA104
- Event ID
- 20080814X01247
- Case number
- ANC08FA104
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-08-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ba12393f7d4464a8895f9ccff6d8731118e2bbaf9a52786f7d0cca8bea05a7f6; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:21:03.043Z.