CEN16LA082 · Beech V35B
Beech V-35 Beech V35B · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Tahlequah Municipal Airport (TQH) to William R. Pogue Municipal Airport (OWP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA082
- 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 V35B
- 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
- N4523A
- Operator
- Beech V-35
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tahlequah Municipal Airport (TQH), Tahlequah, OKTo William R. Pogue Municipal Airport (OWP), Sand Springs, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1970)
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff, about 2.5 miles from the departure airport, the airplane experienced a significant loss of engine power while climbing through 2,500 ft mean sea level. He made an immediate turn back toward the airport for a forced landing. The pilot was initially concerned that the airplane might not have enough altitude to reach the runway, and he decided to keep the landing gear and flaps retracted. The pilot stated that he became distracted with the forced landing and forgot to extend the landing gear once the airplane was in a position to safely to land on the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the lower fuselage when it landed gear-up on the runway.
A postaccident engine test revealed a significant leak from a loose fuel line connection where the airframe fuel supply connected to the mechanical fuel pump inlet. After tightening the loose fuel line connection, the engine started and operated normally. The postaccident examination and testing did not reveal any additional anomalies that would have resulted in a loss of engine power during the accident flight. The engine had accumulated 10.8 hours since its most recent overhaul. It is likely that the mechanic who reinstalled the engine following the recent overhaul did not adequately tighten the airframe fuel supply line to the mechanical fuel pump inlet. The loose connection likely resulted in cavitation within the mechanical fuel pump, which provided abnormal fuel flow to the engine fuel servo, and resulted in a partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power shortly after takeoff due to an inadequately tightened fuel line. Also causal was the pilot's failure to extend the landing gear once the airplane was in a position to safely land on the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA082
- Event ID
- 20160112X62304
- Case number
- CEN16LA082
- 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, coordinates. 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: d5df5ef317cbe9b4c4a495ab999c20e73bbf86d0446430be13d9e566119b0afa; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:05:19.909Z.