CEN09LA227 · Beech A36
Yvoden Beech A36 · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Laredo International Airport (LRD) to Laredo International Airport (LRD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA227
- 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
- N8120R
- Operator
- Yvoden
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laredo International Airport (LRD), Laredo, TXTo Laredo International Airport (LRD), Laredo, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in the traffic pattern, the fuel in the airplane's left wing tank was depleted resulting in a complete loss of engine power. The certified flight instructor (CFI) directed the non-rated passenger sitting in the left seat to position the fuel selector valve to the right tank. The CFI did not accomplish the restart checklist in accordance with the pilot's operating handbook. Engine power was not restored, and the CFI elected to perform a forced landing to an apartment parking lot. The airplane was substantially damaged during the gear-up landing. An examination of the airframe, engine, and fuel selector valve failed to reveal any pre-impact anomaly which would have precluded a restart of the engine.
Probable cause
The certificated flight instructor's improper fuel management resulting in an engine failure due to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's failure to properly complete the restart checklist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA227
- Event ID
- 20090323X53633
- Case number
- CEN09LA227
- 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: e4e292590a87c1067aaf996a1530c0eade50576da28ad183fc45c25c3c25ae5a; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:51:51.096Z.