ERA10LA222 · Beech 95-A55
Beech 95-A55 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From TSIG · Isla Grande, PR to Arecibo, PR
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA222
- 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 95-A55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N9646Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From TSIG · Isla Grande, PRTo Arecibo, PR
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 (partial)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to fuel records the pilot purchased 44 gallons of fuel on the morning of the accident. According to the Federal Aviation Administration inspector the airplane flew two flights prior to the accident flight. While in the traffic pattern and turning onto the base leg the left engine experienced a total loss of power. In order to maintain control of the airplane the pilot retarded the operating engine and performed a landing in a field causing substantial damage to the airplane and serious injuries to both occupants. Postaccident examination revealed no mechanical anomalies with the airplane. Approximately 8 gallons of fuel was extracted from the left wing tanks and the right wing tanks had been breached. A few drops of fuel were extracted from the fuel filters. Examination of the cockpit revealed that both fuel selector valves were in the "aux" position. According to guidance provided by the airplane manufacturer and indicated on a placard by the fuel selector valve, the pilot should "use aux tanks and crossfeed in level flight only."
Probable cause
A loss of engine power in one engine due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's improper fuel management, resulting in a forced landing in a field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA222
- Event ID
- 20100412X03459
- Case number
- ERA10LA222
- 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: 8edeaffa3b35c0f361d0e9f940689dff54745c7e0dbf4e3f51f792baad0c3467; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:51:00.281Z.