CEN14LA002 · Beech S35
Beech S35 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Coleman Municipal Airport (COM) to Brownwood Regional Airport (BWD)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA002
- 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
- N6861Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coleman Municipal Airport (COM), Coleman, TXTo Brownwood Regional Airport (BWD), Brownwood, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1964)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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 Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was making a straight-in approach to land when the engine lost power. He attempted to restart the engine but was unsuccessful. The airplane subsequently impacted trees, cacti, and terrain during the attempted off-airport landing, and a postimpact fire ensued, which destroyed the fuselage. The pilot sustained second- and third-degree burns, but he was able to extricate himself from the wreckage. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that foreign material was present on the fuel pump vanes, the fuel manifold, and the fuel metering unit inlet screen; this material would have blocked the fuel flow to the engine. No other anomalies were noted that would have prevented normal operation of the engine. The foreign material closely matched polyester, but the source of the material could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation, which resulted from a foreign material in the fuel system blocking the fuel flow to the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA002
- Event ID
- 20131008X35403
- Case number
- CEN14LA002
- 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: 0a68d1b9283628489ad055c1e11175032f1d3e1efb05f034da1c99923989d626; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:56:43.030Z.