WPR16LA066 · Beech B36TC
Beech B36TC · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA066
- 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 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
- N113TM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 33 years (built 1983)
- 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 (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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was conducting a test flight following a recent replacement of the turbo wastegate controller, at which time the mechanic also tightened the intercooler hose. The pilot reported that, during the ground roll and initial climb, the engine tone was continuous, and both the manifold pressure and rpm indications were normal. As the airplane reached about 300 ft mean sea level, the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to restore engine power by switching the fuel tanks and cycling both the "low" and "high" settings of the fuel boost pump but was unsuccessful. He leveled the wings and extended the flaps to prepare for a forced landing, and a few seconds later, the airplane impacted a slough about 1/2 mile southeast of the departure end of the runway.
A postaccident examination of the fuel system did not reveal any anomalies or obstructions. Further, examination of the engine did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions, except for the separation of the intercooler from its mounts, which had resulted from the accident. During a test run, the engine was not able to produce rated horsepower until the intercooler was removed; however, the engine was still able to produce normally aspirated engine power with the intercooler installed.
The Pilot's Operating Handbook warned against using the "high" fuel boost pump position when the engine-driven fuel pump is operating because it can result in an excessively rich fuel/air mixture and engine failure. Thus, the pilot's attempt to restart the engine with the fuel boost pump at the "high" setting may have prevented engine power from being restored; however, even if engine power had been restored, given the airplane's low altitude when the engine lost power, it is unlikely that the pilot would have had sufficient time to complete a successful engine restart and continue safe flight. The investigation could not determine the reason for the total loss of engine power during initial climbout.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climbout for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination and testing of the engine did not reveal any mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA066
- Event ID
- 20160209X10143
- Case number
- WPR16LA066
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-02-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1755160ed21c4441da7b51ed2f212b10e9123b279f082727b4dd3c685ab0e7a; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:08:39.975Z.