WPR09CA467 · Beech 35-C33
Beech 35-C33 · Accident: fuel exhaustion during an emergency descent
From Siletz Bay State Airport (KS45) to Astoria Regional Airport (KAST)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA467
- 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-C33
- 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
- N90LP
- Operator
- Erman David G
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Siletz Bay State Airport (KS45), Gleneden Beach, ORTo Astoria Regional Airport (KAST), Astoria, OR
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated during the preflight, he checked the fuel gages which indicated 12 gallons in the left wing and 18 gallons in the right wing. The right wing tank indicated just below half a tank. The pilot stated that "it is not possible to visually gauge the fuel quantity once the amount is below 30 gallons per tank," and that it is difficult to know exactly how much fuel is in the airplane. About 24 minutes after takeoff the pilot reported that the engine experienced initial indications of low fuel while operating from the left fuel tank. The pilot then switched to the right fuel tank. Instead of proceeding to his destination, 35 miles away, the pilot diverted to a closer airport, 15 miles away. After 5 minutes, the engine again demonstrated conditions consistent with low fuel. Not believing that he could make the runway, the pilot decided to make a precautionary landing in a cattle pasture about 1 mile from the airport. During the landing, the right main landing gear collapsed and the right wing was structurally damaged. Post-accident inspection of the fuel system found that both fuel tanks were nearly empty of fuel. Inspection of the right fuel gage indicated about 1/3, when in fact the fuel tank was empty.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion as a result of the pilot's failure to visually verify that sufficient fuel was on board prior to flight. Contributing to the accident was a malfunctioning fuel gage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA467
- Event ID
- 20090927X53212
- Case number
- WPR09CA467
- 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: a56e611ae5b4d77337d47bc7a3eef81483f6d7a1fc19962e8f24bdd36cd74d4c; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:21:10.256Z.