ERA15LA053 · Beech F33A

According to the commercial pilot, earlier on the day of the accident, she had flown the airplane from her home airport to the airport from which the accident flight departed. Before departing on the return flight to her home airport, she noted about 20 gallons of fuel in each main wing tank for the 45-minute flight. After taking off and establishing the airplane on course, she climbed the airplane to 4,500 ft mean sea level; trimmed the airplane for cruise flight; and set engine rpm to 2,300, manifold pressure to 23 inches of mercury, and fuel flow to 13 gallons per hour. Sometime later, she heard "a loud explosive bang - like a gunshot." She immediately checked her instruments and noted that the rpm had risen to over 2,500. She then reduced the propeller control with no effect. The airplane started to "shudder." The rpm dropped to 2,000, the airspeed had dropped off, and the airplane began to lose altitude. She then checked her propeller setting and aggressively advanced the propeller, but there was no increase in rpm. She contacted air traffic control, reported engine problems, and declared an emergency; the controller advised her to land at a nearby airport. The pilot turned toward the airport but was unable to see it. When she realized that she was not going to find the airport or an open area, she decided not to put the landing gear down because she was aiming to land the airplane on top of the trees. She reached down to shut the fuel selector off because she was afraid there might be a fire once she crashed. Because she was approaching the trees, she did not look at the fuel selector handle to check its setting. She knew she turned the handle but was not sure if she had fully turned it to the off position from the right tank position. The airplane then collided with the trees and sustained substantial damage.

Postaccident examination of the propeller and engine revealed no evidence of preexisting malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. An engine run in a test cell revealed that it operated normally with no anomalies noted. Further examination of the airplane revealed that it had not been configured by the pilot per the manufacturer's published guidance in the pilot's operating handbook and Federal Aviation Administration-approved airplane flight manual for a loss of engine power, maximum glide configuration, or landing without power.

First responders did not report evidence of a fuel spill, although both wing tip tanks and wing fuel bladders were breached. The tip tanks were totally devoid of fuel, but fuel was in the undamaged portion of each of the wing tank's fuel bladders. About 17 gallons of fuel were recovered from the right-wing tank, and less than 1 gallon of fuel was recovered from the left-wing tank. The fuel selector was in the left tank position. The fuel strainer was clean, free of debris, and devoid of fuel. No fuel was recovered from the fuel supply line to the engine-driven fuel pump.

Examination of the electronic fuel-flow indicator, which presented information to the pilot about the fuel usage and could display the total fuel used and the remaining fuel on board, revealed that it had not been initialized by the pilot in quite some time. An accurate fuel-remaining value relied on the pilot to initialize the device when refueling. A review of fueling information revealed that the pilot had not refueled the airplane at her home airport earlier that day; further, she did not refuel before departing on the accident flight. Because the pilot had not refueled before either flight on the day of the accident and had not initialized the fuel-flow indicator, it is likely that she did not perform adequate preflight fuel planning and improperly managed the fuel in flight, which led to fuel starvation.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset