ERA09FA283 · Beech K35
Beech K35 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA) to Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09FA283
- 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 K35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N111YR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Lantana, FLTo Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Lantana, FL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to witnesses, during the initial climb after takeoff and as the airplane reached an altitude of 75 to 100 feet above the ground, the engine ran rough momentarily and then lost power. The airplane entered a right descending turn back toward the airport, where it struck two parked, unoccupied airplanes before impacting the ground and colliding with a tractor-trailer container. Subsequent inspection of the engine revealed that the idler gear support pin was backed-off from its proper mounting position. In addition, the two mounting studs did not contain any mounting hardware, and their respective threads were undamaged. A review of maintenance records revealed that the airplane had been operated for about 2 hours since the engine was disassembled for "extensive engine repair due to spalled cam and lifter bodies," about 5 months prior to the accident, and since its most recent annual inspection, which was performed about 1 month prior to the accident. An engine test run that was conducted after the idler gear support pin was properly installed did not reveal any other engine anomalies.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to disengagement of the idler gear support pin as a result of improper maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09FA283
- Event ID
- 20090506X32230
- Case number
- ERA09FA283
- 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: 2c658fd10d432909782127c21d98048f6f0dc2d6f21ae54a0d35b35d27cc5cd1; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:06:45.179Z.