CEN09IA595 · Beech V35
Beech V35 · Incident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Rusk County Airport (RFI) to Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09IA595
- 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
- Incident
- 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 V35
- 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
- N97500
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rusk County Airport (RFI), Henderson, TXTo Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT), Beaumont, 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
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight the airplane's engine experienced a catastrophic failure. The pilot attempted to glide to a local airport, but was unable. While performing the forced landing to a vacant parking lot the airplane's upper windscreen impacted a static wire; however, the pilot was able to land successfully with minor damage to the airplane. Approximately 12 quarts of oil were drained from the engine sump before a tear down examination was performed. The examination revealed that the number two and four connecting rods had separated from the crankshaft. The number two connecting rod cap and rod cap bearings were thermally discolored, and the two rod cap bolts were found separated. Impact signatures on the number four connecting rod were constant with a secondary failure. The reason for the number two rod cap thermal discoloration and subsequent rod failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
The complete loss of engine power due to failure of the number two connecting rod. The reason for the connecting rod failure could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09IA595
- Event ID
- 20090921X85526
- Case number
- CEN09IA595
- 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: 926ca24fa5127174d9d5c8413fc838eb3763a022a11dd9e4eb74803d997a3bed; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:20:08.599Z.