CEN13FA476 · Beechcraft F33A
Beechcraft F33A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Majors Airport (KGVT) to Austin, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA476
- 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
- 2 · 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
Beechcraft F33A
- 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
- N4514S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Majors Airport (KGVT), Greenville, TXTo Austin, TX
- 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 · descent
- 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 air traffic control (ATC) recordings, the pilot contacted ATC and requested radar flight following services. About 30 minutes later, the pilot cancelled flight following services and changed his destination airport. Radar data indicate that the airplane was at an altitude of 10,300 feet mean sea level (msl) at this time. During the next 5 minutes 11 seconds, the airplane descended 5,400 feet (about 1,000 feet per minute) and made a left turn from a southerly to a northerly heading. The pilot reported to ATC that he had turned back toward the destination airport but that the airplane was having some fuel issues, and he then requested the closest airport. The air traffic controller stated that the destination airport was the closest airport, and the pilot replied, "Uh, roger that, I am gonna..." No further communications were received from the pilot. The airplane wreckage was located 9.17 miles north-northeast of the last known radar location. During the forced landing to the field, the airplane struck trees and brush, and a postimpact fire ensued.
Several witnesses in the area reported observing the airplane flying low to the ground as if the pilot was preparing to land. One witness stated that the wings rocked back and forth several times as the airplane continued to descend. Another witness stated that the airplane hit a tree and "exploded." An examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The fuel system was damaged by the fire and could not be fully examined. The extent of the postimpact fire was consistent with the airplane having an adequate amount of fuel onboard. The source of the fuel issue and the reason for the subsequent loss of engine power could not be determined due to postcrash fire damage.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examinations due to postcrash fire damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA476
- Event ID
- 20130811X41436
- Case number
- CEN13FA476
- 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: edf0cd407623a19577822a53ec79a8ed57662ad5ed0939f0ae33a4f65d87b437; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:02:08.415Z.