CEN14LA408 · Raytheon Aircraft Company B36TC
Raytheon Aircraft Company B36TC · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Macomb Municipal Airport (MQB) to Decatur Airport (DEC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA408
- 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
- 0
- 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
Raytheon Aircraft Company B36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N1069T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Macomb Municipal Airport (MQB), Macomb, ILTo Decatur Airport (DEC), Decatur, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1996)
- 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
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while on approach to the airport, he switched the fuel selector handle to the left fuel tank. Minutes later, while he was turning the airplane in the traffic pattern, the engine experienced a partial loss of power. He switched on the electric fuel pump, and the engine power was briefly restored. The engine lost power again, and the pilot made a forced landing to a cornfield on the south side of the airfield.
A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that fibrous debris, which measured 0.2 inch by 0.4 inch, was present in the fuel manifold valve and the filter screen. Similar debris was also found obstructing the inside of the fuel selector screen. Data extracted from the airplane's engine monitor data card revealed that, during cruise flight, the fuel flow was inconsistent, ranging from about 20 to 95 gallons per hour (gph); this was likely due to the debris obstruction. In the final minute of the flight, the fuel flow decreased to 5 gph and then spiked to 75 gph, which is consistent with the fuel pump being switched on, before decreasing again without recovering. The engine rpm tracked with the reductions and increase in fuel flow. Based on the physical evidence and the engine data, it is likely that the debris in the fuel selector screen ultimately blocked the fuel from reaching the engine, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Probable cause
Debris in the fuel system, which resulted in fuel starvation and a subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA408
- Event ID
- 20140807X03217
- Case number
- CEN14LA408
- 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: 0ce4294883468d63de499903170b566c7a8001a0a2d24bdf43133bb02146c3fe; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:36:37.903Z.