ERA16LA019 · Beech 23
Old School Aircraft Beech 23 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Humboldt Municipal Airport (M53) to Humboldt Municipal Airport (M53)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA019
- 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 23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N2339J
- Operator
- Old School Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Humboldt Municipal Airport (M53), Humboldt, TNTo Humboldt Municipal Airport (M53), Humboldt, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot and flight instructor reported that ground operations were normal. During the initial climb, when the airplane was about 950 ft above ground level, the engine lost partial power. Unable to return to the departure airport, the flight instructor performed a forced landing in a field. During the landing roll, the nose gear collapsed, which resulted in substantial damage to the airframe.
A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No. 2 cylinder only produced minimal compression and that the intake valve would not seat fully due to carbon deposits. The No. 2 cylinder exhaust pipe flange was separated from the cylinder exhaust seat face by about 0.25 inch on the outer left side, and the stud was missing the nut and both washers. One of the spark plugs had lead deposits and produced a weak spark when tested. Also, the right magneto was inoperative; the permanent magnet breaker end bearing had failed, and six teeth were missing from the large distributor timing gear. The partial loss of engine power was likely the result of both the low No. 2 cylinder compression and an inoperative right magneto.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to low No. 2 cylinder compression and an inoperative right magneto.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA019
- Event ID
- 20151019X31431
- Case number
- ERA16LA019
- 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: 290da193030a50715b4e10e17f62a317e0490c84936e6fb27d226bdd69a23bc2; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:53:49.522Z.