CEN09FA430 · Beech 35-A33
Beech 35-A33 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during an emergency descent
From St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN) to Las Vegas Municipal Airport (LVS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09FA430
- 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 35-A33
- 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
- N4334W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN), St Johns, AZTo Las Vegas Municipal Airport (LVS), Las Vegas, NM
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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
After a cross-country visual flight rules flight of one hour and 40 minutes, the pilot was landing at an airport with a surface elevation of 6,877 feet mean sea level. While on downwind for landing the pilot extended the landing gear and flaps, and set the engine power at 1,700 rpm. A witness at the airport heard the engine “sputtering,” then the engine failed and restarted twice before he heard the engine fail completely. The pilot executed a forced landing to a field one mile south of the airport and the airplane flipped inverted during the impact with terrain. The airplane was substantially damaged by the impact forces and the post-impact fire. The two occupants were seriously injured. The investigation revealed that adequate fuel was present, with symmetrical fire damage to both wings. The engine was tested at the manufacturer's facility and during the first start the engine started normally on the first attempt without hesitation or stumbling. The engine rpms were advanced in steps to 1200 rpm and held for five (5) minutes to stabilize. The engine throttle was advanced to full open position and held for five minutes to stabilize. The engine throttle was rapidly advanced from idle to full throttle six times. Throughout the test phase, the engine accelerated normally without any hesitation or interruption in power and demonstrated the ability to produce rated horsepower.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09FA430
- Event ID
- 20090712X92629
- Case number
- CEN09FA430
- 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: 24770e5d79e32a331f2b651e25442c6d7bc961352456ccf9585dbdddf3520624; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:48:18.863Z.