CEN09LA014 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Pearland Regional Airport (LVJ) to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA014
- 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 A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N703KP
- Operator
- Barker Michael e
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pearland Regional Airport (LVJ), Pearland, TXTo David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Houston, TX
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight the propeller's rpms unexpectedly increased to approximately 2,900. After an attempt to reduce the rpms via the propeller governor failed, the pilot was successful by reducing the engine throttle. Seconds later the engine began to make a "knocking noise" before complete engine power was lost. The pilot performed a forced landing to a rough field, resulting in a hard landing. The pilot was able to exit the airplane unassisted. Moments later the airplane caught fire and was fully engulfed in flames. An examination of the engine revealed that the oil filter adapter housing contained a fracture that allowed the engine oil to escape, resulting in oil starvation and a subsequent engine seizure. Reportedly this was the first flight since the airplane's annual inspection and the last oil filter change. Due to thermal damage to the oil filter adapter and oil filter, the reason for the fractured oil filter adapter could not be determined.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a fracture in the oil filter adapter housing. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA014
- Event ID
- 20081014X85418
- Case number
- CEN09LA014
- 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: e6e89ff689e0c907366626bec3dc7b9352210b8ee5bf0a4d77d3f75351ec900b; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:27:59.065Z.