WPR09LA050 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Harris Ranch Airport (3O8)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA050
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N3058Y
- Operator
- Robert Stevens
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Harris Ranch Airport (3O8), Coalinga, 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 · climb to 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after an uneventful night cross-country flight, he established visual contact with the area of his intended destination and started a descent towards the airport. The pilot stated that due to a layer of fog over the airport, he diverted to an alternate airport equipped with an instrument approach and initiated a climbing left turn. Shortly after, the engine lost power and the pilot altered his course to the nearest airport, and conducted his emergency checklist. Despite numerous attempts, the engine would not restart. The pilot further stated that upon realizing he would not be able to make the airport, he set up for an off-field landing with the flaps and landing gear retracted. During the emergency descent, visibility was limited due to a layer of fog. Subsequently, the airplane landed hard in an open field and came to rest upright. First responders reported that thick fog in the area at the time of the accident hampered the search and rescue operation while locating the downed airplane. The engine was removed from the airframe and installed on a test stand. The engine was started and ran smoothly at an idle speed before the engine was shut down using the mixture control cutoff. No preexisting mechanical anomalies were noted with examination of the recovered airframe and engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power while in climb to cruise flight for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA050
- Event ID
- 20081201X42806
- Case number
- WPR09LA050
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-12-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 12430705dab61b94687ae35e2d762346064de8c37c3181d16cc85ead36927152; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:50:29.919Z.