CEN13LA229 · Beech N35
Beech N35 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Warren Municipal Airport (3M9) to Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport (MEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA229
- 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 N35
- 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
- N9414Y
- Operator
- William M. Morris · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren Municipal Airport (3M9), Warren, ARTo Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport (MEZ), Mena, AR
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the engine lost power during the initial climb. He then established a glide in an attempt to return to the airport; however, due to "strong" wind, the airplane landed "abruptly short of the runway." A postaccident engine examination revealed that the crankshaft had fractured due to fatigue through the No. 3 cheek immediately aft of the No. 2 main bearing journal. Portions of the saddle bore diameter at the nose of the crankshaft were oversized. The crankcase No. 2 main bearing saddle exhibited longitudinal deformation adjacent to the bore with fretting and galling on the saddle landings. The No. 1 main bearing shells were deformed; the No. 2 main bearing shells were worn, deformed, and partially split. The remaining bearings exhibited helical lines that matched the machining lines on the crankcase main bearing saddles. The tin coating had been worn away except around the oil transfer holes. The appearance of the main bearing shells was consistent with the bearings shifting during operation due to insufficient crush, which was likely caused by the oversized main saddle bore diameters. Maintenance records indicated that the engine was disassembled about 15 months before the accident due to a propeller strike. At that time, maintenance personnel cut the crankcase mating surfaces and resized the saddle bores. The engine had accumulated about 16.5 hours since the engine was reinstalled. It is likely that maintenance personnel improperly resized the saddle bores during the engine maintenance.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the engine crankshaft due to oversized crankcase saddle bores, which resulted from maintenance personnel improperly resizing the saddle bores during engine maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA229
- Event ID
- 20130416X51228
- Case number
- CEN13LA229
- 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: 7d352b320763417b43380f47e0bb522381c7845557ebcb58d23baf2b03af086b; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:19:36.297Z.