ERA11FA295 · Beech G33
Beech G33 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Washington County Airport (AFJ) to Rostraver Airport (FWQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA295
- 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 G33
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N1554W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington County Airport (AFJ), Washington, PATo Rostraver Airport (FWQ), Monongahela, PA
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- 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 departed without conducting a preflight inspection and with an unknown quantity of fuel. Shortly after takeoff, the engine stopped producing power. The pilot attempted to restart the engine but did not follow the published emergency procedure, and the engine did not restart. The pilot performed a forced landing to a field. Postaccident examination of the airplane at the scene by HAZMAT responders revealed no external odor of fuel and no evidence of fuel spillage. The left fuel tank contained only trace amounts of fuel; the fuel selector was on the left tank position. Integrity and continuity of the fuel system was confirmed from both fuel tanks, through the fuel selector, to the engine. The engine was test run and it operated satisfactorily. According to the Pilot Operating Handbook, the takeoff procedures are not to takeoff with less than 13 gallons of fuel indicated in either tank, and the emergency procedures are to switch the selector to the fuller tank. The examination did not disclose any evidence of a mechanical malfunction that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation, as a result of the pilot's improper fuel management and preflight inspection. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to comply with the manufacturer's published takeoff and emergency procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA295
- Event ID
- 20110513X34201
- Case number
- ERA11FA295
- 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: f82e19b84219b3eebe0f3fd2a8197aeeb8697764dcaed9ac8e839e03392eaabe; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:09:45.624Z.