WPR10LA408 · Beech V35B
Rosemead Properties Beech V35B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT) to University Airport (EDU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA408
- 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 V35B
- 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
- N67311
- Operator
- Rosemead Properties
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CATo University Airport (EDU), Davis, CA
- 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 · 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that prior to departing for the cross-country flight he had topped off the fuel in both fuel tanks. He took off with the fuel selector positioned to the left tank, and about 1 hour into the flight he switched to the right fuel tank. The remainder of the flight was uneventful until he started the airplane's descent to land. He stated that he switched the fuel selector back to the left fuel tank in preparation for landing. Shortly after he switched the fuel tank, the engine lost power. He repositioned the fuel selector to the right fuel tank and made an unsuccessful attempt to restart the engine. He initiated a forced landing to an open field, and during the descent the airplane struck power lines. The airplane landed hard in a wings-level attitude, substantially damaging the fuselage in the accident sequence. He reported to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector who responded to the accident site that he had observed fuel leaking from the fuel cap after takeoff. During the on-scene examination of the airframe the FAA inspector observed fuel stains along the left wing originating from the fuel cap, which was consistent with fuel venting out of the wing. Recovery personnel recovered a minimal amount of fuel during the recovery process and reported that the fuel tanks had not been breached during the accident sequence. Examination of the engine found no evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during descent due to fuel exhaustion as a result of the pilot's failure to ensure that the fuel cap was secured during the preflight inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA408
- Event ID
- 20100817X30617
- Case number
- WPR10LA408
- 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: 18f32bfaa6408b9933cfcfd36db95a6d285b05a2b89ab2b804106e92221ff7fa; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:51:32.807Z.