CEN14LA165 · Beech P35
Beech P35 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Kickapoo Downtown Airport (CWC) to Kickapoo Downtown Airport (CWC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA165
- 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 P35
- 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
- N9532Y
- Operator
- Beavers Glenn A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kickapoo Downtown Airport (CWC), Wichita Falls, TXTo Kickapoo Downtown Airport (CWC), Wichita Falls, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1962)
- 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 base
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while turning from the downwind to the base leg to prepare for a short-field landing on the runway, he reduced the throttle. He then applied throttle to increase the power when the airplane was about 600 feet above ground level; however, the engine did not respond, and the pilot subsequently executed a forced landing to a field. During the landing, both wings sustained substantial damage.
During an engine test run with the cockpit fuel mixture control in the full-forward position, the engine would lose power when the throttle was advanced past 2,000 rpm. When the cockpit fuel mixture control was pulled out about 1 inch, the engine would develop 2,700 rpm (full power) when the throttle was advanced. The examination of the engine revealed that the lean mixture stop pin in the fuel metering unit was loose and could be removed by hand. Wear was observed on the inside of the fuel mixture actuating arm and on the mixture stop on the rotating shaft. The fuel metering unit's rich mixture stop pin was missing, which allowed the actuating arm to travel past the full-rich mixture position. A bench test of the fuel mixture control demonstrated that extension past the rich mixture stop pin reduced the fuel flow to the engine. This condition indicates that the airplane's fuel mixture control was misrigged, which resulted in the rich mixture stop pin dislodging from the fuel metering unit. It could not be determined when the fuel mixture control was misrigged.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to the misrigging of the fuel mixture control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA165
- Event ID
- 20140320X05548
- Case number
- CEN14LA165
- 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: 582687b66a740522ff8448fcf455cf948a37799727dd6c3bbaf8453d2ca2da5b; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:25:00.498Z.