ERA09FA289 · Beech A36 UNDESIGNAT
Beech A36 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Destin Executive Airport (DTS) to Newnan Coweta County Airport (CCO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09FA289
- 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 A36 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N191MK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Destin Executive Airport (DTS), Destin, FLTo Newnan Coweta County Airport (CCO), Newnan, GA
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on the second leg of his cross-country flight, after picking up three passengers at the intermediate airport. The passengers stated that while cruising at 7,000 feet, the engine lost power. The pilot was able to restart the engine but it lost power again. The pilot rearranged the aft passengers into the aft facing seats, and then performed a forced landing to a pasture, during which the airplane collided with trees and a large rolled bale of hay. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the fuel selector valve was selected to the right fuel tank and the fuel drain on the selector valve was opened and there was no fuel present. The right tip tank was breached but contained about 4.5 gallons of fuel. The right main fuel tank was breached and no fuel was observed. The left main fuel tank bladder remained intact and was not leaking; approximately 1 quart of fuel was drained from the tank. The left wing tip tank was found separated from the wing; the tip tank was breached but contained approximately 1/2 gallon of fuel. No evidence of fuel leakage or browned grass was observed. Functional testing of the engine and fuel selector valve revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies. During the functional test of the engine, the fuel supply was intentionally interrupted by turning off the test cell fuel valve and by the disconnection of the fuel pump hose supple quick-disconnect. In both cases, after engine function ceased, fuel was present in the fuel control inlet and outlet lines. Witnesses stated that prior to the accident flight; the daughter of the pilot was seen draining what was later measured to be 25.4 gallons of fuel from the main tanks. At the time when the cross-country flight started, the airplane had approximately 48.6 gallons of fuel in the main tanks and 10 gallons of fuel in each of the tip tanks. According to performance calculations made during the investigation, the engine would have burned at least 48.6 gallons of fuel at the time the engine lost power, confirming that the pilot never utilized the fuel remaining in the tip tanks.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper fuel management, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09FA289
- Event ID
- 20090515X64934
- Case number
- ERA09FA289
- 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: fb6cdd76728a2644eab8006818511b675c75206f3f84165cf271ee8174b6d162; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:07:51.843Z.