Albatross Aircraft Sales Beech 58 accident
Beech 58 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From Morgantown Municipal Airport Walter L. (Bill) Hart Field (MGW) to Mercer County Airport (BLF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA485
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N86BR
- Operator
- Albatross Aircraft Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morgantown Municipal Airport Walter L. (Bill) Hart Field (MGW), Morgantown, WVTo Mercer County Airport (BLF), Bluefield, WV
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 handling/service
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, while in cruise flight, the right engine lost power. He attempted to move the left fuel selector to the crossfeed position in an attempt to restart the right engine, but the fuel selector knob would not turn clockwise to that position. Shortly thereafter, the left engine lost power. The pilot feathered both propellers and set the airplane up for its best glide angle in an attempt to reach the closest airport. His attempts to restart the engines during the descent were unsucessful. The pilot made a forced landing in the backyard of a private residence, and the airplane collided with a house, sustaining substantial damage. A postaccident examination of the fuel system revealed that the fuel selectors were indicating "on" for both fuel tanks, and the left fuel selector knob would not rotate clockwise to the crossfeed position. When the left fuel selector valve was disassembled, it was found to be rigged incorrectly. In the “on” position, the valve should have drawn fuel from the left and right fuel tanks. Instead, it drew fuel from the right tank only. The right fuel tank was found to be empty of all usable fuel. A review of the airplane's maintenance records revealed that the left fuel selector was removed, resealed, and reinstalled prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The improper rigging of the fuel selector by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA485
- Event ID
- 20100918X12115
- Case number
- ERA10LA485
- 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: 3be5febf1f690516a4cb074148d93cf4a01c138803a1006b3c5d4299c6fb6f8a; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:15:43.060Z.