CEN14LA393 · Beech 35-C33A
Henke Petroleum Beech 35-C33A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Shawnee Regional Airport (KSNL) to Pueblo Memorial Airport (KPUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA393
- 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 35-C33A
- 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
- N72CW
- Operator
- Henke Petroleum
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shawnee Regional Airport (KSNL), Shawnee Regiona, OKTo Pueblo Memorial Airport (KPUB), Pueblo, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1966)
- 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
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while on final approach with the engine idling, he advanced the mixture control to the "full rich" position and the propeller control to the "high rpm" position in case he had to perform a go-around. The engine immediately lost power, and the airplane started to lose altitude. The pilot turned the airplane to avoid a ravine ahead and subsequently made a forced landing on rough terrain. The engine was functionally tested in a test cell to full power, and no anomalies were noted. About 25 gallons of usable fuel were found in the right fuel tank. However, the fuel tank selector was found positioned to the left fuel tank, and only 1/2 gallon of fuel was found in the left tank; therefore, it is likely the engine was starved of available fuel. If the pilot had been monitoring the fuel in flight and switched the fuel tank selector to the right fuel tank, the engine likely would not have been starved of fuel.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation, which resulted from the pilot’s improper fuel management and resulted in a forced landing on unsuitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA393
- Event ID
- 20140728X53805
- Case number
- CEN14LA393
- 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: 28175b21c6402d84afb4f82afc279d97f615ee31904de2549aff14da36327cb2; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:00:57.071Z.