ERA14TA326 · Cessna 336
Mobile County Health Department Cessna 336 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From St Elmo Airport (2R5) to St Elmo Airport (2R5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14TA326
- 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
- Government
- 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
Cessna 336
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 336
- 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
- N3804U
- Operator
- Mobile County Health Department
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Elmo Airport (2R5), St. Elmo, ALTo St Elmo Airport (2R5), St. Elmo, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 50 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was performing mosquito control spraying operations at 100 ft above ground level (agl) when the rear engine began to sputter and lose power. He switched to the auxiliary fuel tank; however, this did not remedy the situation. He then climbed the airplane to 500 ft agl and continued to troubleshoot the problem by again switching fuel tanks and turning the electric boost pumps on. Shortly thereafter, the front engine began to lose power. Unable to regain full power on both engines, the pilot chose to perform a forced landing in an open field. The airplane touched down on soft soil and stopped abruptly, which resulted in extensive damage to the airplane.
Both fuel selectors were found in the right main fuel tank positions. An examination of the fuel system revealed that the main fuel tanks contained only residual fuel and that the auxiliary tanks contained an adequate amount of fuel. Examination of the fuel lines revealed that both supply lines from the gascolators to the engine-driven fuel pumps were contaminated and obstructed with a granular, powder-like substance. The engines ran normally when operated in a test cell after the accident.
The auxiliary fuel tanks were designed for level, cruise flight only. The auxiliary tanks fed directly to the fuel selector and had no boost pumps available. It is likely that, due to the fuel system's design, adequate fuel pressure could not be regained once the main tanks were depleted and the pilot switched to the auxiliary tanks. The contamination in the fuel lines might have further restricted fuel flow to the engines. The loss of engine power might have been prevented if the pilot had maintained an adequate amount of fuel in the main tanks.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight fuel planning during which he did not ensure that there was adequate fuel in the main tanks for the flight, which resulted in a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14TA326
- Event ID
- 20140703X13946
- Case number
- ERA14TA326
- 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: f56108b8438291c9e1be99bcbfdbe6b129fbcdb46c0b2ea52878b1b695b0be6c; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:48:03.801Z.