CEN13LA381 · Beech C23
Seymours Sundowners Beech C23 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) to Memorial Field Airport (HOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA381
- 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 C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N3KT
- Operator
- Seymours Sundowners
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TXTo Memorial Field Airport (HOT), Hot Springs, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Approach
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › 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 airplane departed with 50 gallons of fuel onboard (confirmed by receipts and a lineman) of which 2.6 gallons was unusable. The pilots verified that the fuel was correct and was not contaminated. During the flight, they appropriately leaned the mixture for each altitude at which they were flying. About 1 hour into the flight, they switched to the left fuel tank, and about 1 hour 42 minutes later, they switched back to the right fuel tank. About 8 miles from the airport, the engine lost power. The pilots turned on the fuel pump, and the engine regained power briefly. They selected the left fuel tank, and the engine again regained power. The pilots expected to make the airport and estimated that 8 gallons of fuel remained, which would have met required fuel reserves. About 3 miles from the airport, the engine lost power again. The pilots switched to the right fuel tank. However, the engine produced short "bursts of power." At this point, the left seat pilot turned control over to the right seat pilot. A small, clear, grassy area was selected for a forced landing. The left wing impacted a tree, and the nose hit another tree. An examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel tanks were intact. The flight's fuel planning was reviewed and found to be adequate to complete the flight. Using the manufacturer's "best power" fuel mixture setting, 41.6 gallons of fuel would be needed to complete the flight. However, 26 ounces of fuel was recovered from both fuel tanks. The pilots stated the fuel gauges worked during the flight. The pilot operating handbook indicated that it is "the pilot's responsibility to ascertain that the fuel quantity indicators are functioning and maintaining a reasonable degree of accuracy, and to be certain of ample fuel for a flight." It is likely that the pilots did not use the best power fuel mixture setting throughout the flight, thus burning more fuel than they had planned for the flight. However, they should have been monitoring the fuel consumption and landed before the fuel was exhausted.
Probable cause
The pilots’ failure to monitor and manage fuel consumption during cruise flight, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA381
- Event ID
- 20130701X90424
- Case number
- CEN13LA381
- 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: 38bf7640883521406b249db1eff38d3ae32fee080234b27a020f78a9ae40eb00; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:03:01.125Z.