CEN13LA072 · Beech S35
Beech S35 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN) to DeRidder, LA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA072
- 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 S35
- 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
- N322D
- Operator
- Jack C. Murrell, Jr · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Shreveport, LATo DeRidder, LA
- 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 · 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that the airplane was in cruise flight at 5,500 feet mean sea level when he heard an "odd" sound coming from the engine. He diverted to the nearest airport but then saw oil on the windscreen and smoke in the cockpit. When he realized he would not reach the diversion airport, the pilot made a gear down landing in a field. Before touchdown, the pilot pushed the control column forward in an attempt to avoid a stall, and the airplane landed hard.
Examination of the engine revealed damage consistent with oil starvation. Examination of the engine assembly did not reveal any blocked or restricted oil ports/galleys or slipped/elongated bearings that would result in a loss of oil or oil pressure. Examination of the cap for the oil dipstick revealed it was severely corroded and the tangs used to secure it to the oil filler tube were missing. The cap for the oil gauge rod (dipstick) had separated from the dipstick and was found several feet away from the main wreckage; thus it is likely that the oil leaked out from this location.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to oil starvation after the oil filler cap separated from the oil filler tube during flight due to corrosion. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during low altitude operations, which precipitated the onset of a stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA072
- Event ID
- 20121126X22842
- Case number
- CEN13LA072
- 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: 90b887d3ff9e5452bdedfd5a9b8fcf7238dbd546d9cf1ee67a11f705efc9b5a0; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:28:54.263Z.