WPR10LA091 · Beech A23-24
Beech A23-24 · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure before flight
From Grove Field (1W1) to Grove Field (1W1)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA091
- 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 A23-24
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N973WP
- Operator
- Woodruff Barry W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grove Field (1W1), Camas, WATo Grove Field (1W1), Camas, WA
- 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
- Electrical system malfunction/failure
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that due to low overnight temperatures the engine would not start. As a part of his normal procedure for cold weather operations, he turned off the master and ignition switches, removed the key, and exited the airplane. The pilot was rotating the propeller counterclockwise by hand when the engine suddenly started. The airplane began moving down the taxiway and struck an unoccupied, parked airplane. The engine immediately stopped and the airplane turned approximately 90 degrees to the left, substantially damaging the airplane's left wing. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed a broken p-lead on the left magneto of the airplane. The pilot stated that he could have prevented this accident from occurring by placing the mixture at idle cutoff, placing the throttle at idle, chocking the wheels, and turning the propeller in a clockwise direction.
Probable cause
The left magneto's broken p-lead, which led to the engine inadvertently starting while the pilot was turning the propeller by hand.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA091
- Event ID
- 20091223X25413
- Case number
- WPR10LA091
- 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: f4c29174c7a07f97570726c98c5143c1ae6f865dba5a28d45fd472889c4a80f6; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:35:16.226Z.