ERA13LA214 · Beech 35-C33A
Beech 35-C33A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX) to Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA214
- 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 35-C33A
- 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
- N2713T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX), Knoxville, TNTo Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX), Knoxville, TN
- 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 (partial)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the accident pilot, who was also a mechanic at a repair facility that had just completed work on the airplane's engine, the airplane's owner reported that, during his last flight, the engine began running roughly about 7,500 ft. He stated that the owner also reported that turning on the auxiliary fuel pump caused the engine to run "smooth" and that he continued the flight uneventfully. Maintenance personnel, including the accident pilot, examined and tested the engine's induction, ignition, and fuel systems, and the only discrepancy they discovered was that the engine-driven fuel pump inlet fitting was loose.
After the examination, the accident pilot performed a preflight inspection and engine run-up with no anomalies noted. The pilot reported that, before initiating the takeoff for the postmaintenance check flight, he chose to activate the auxiliary pump as a precautionary measure; however, the Pilot's Operating Handbook, the pilot's abbreviated checklist, and a placard near the auxiliary fuel pump switch indicated that the auxiliary fuel boost pump should be turned off for takeoff. During the initial climb, when the airplane was less than 200 ft above the ground, the engine lost power. The pilot's efforts to restore engine power were unsuccessful, so he performed a forced landing. A postaccident examination and test run of the engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Although the pilot did not follow the published takeoff procedures, it could not be determined if his use of the auxiliary fuel boost pump during takeoff caused the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during takeoff for a reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examinations and testing revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA214
- Event ID
- 20130426X95408
- Case number
- ERA13LA214
- 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: 23da69005bd3658f96009e1d823ac9b690a526f9e26152188e501ff101c1df72; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:21:48.182Z.