WPR17LA058 · Beech E17L L
Beech E17L L · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Jefferson County International Airport (0S9) to Jefferson County International Airport (0S9)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA058
- 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 E17L L
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 17
- 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
- N41663
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jefferson County International Airport (0S9), Port Townsend, WATo Jefferson County International Airport (0S9), Port Townsend, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 80 years (built 1937)
- 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
- 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 pilot stated that after departure for the local flight, he maneuvered the airplane along the shoreline, and the airplane reached about 900 ft above ground level. The fuel pressure then dropped to zero, and the low-pressure light illuminated. The pilot switched fuel tanks and activated the fuel pump; however, the pressure remained at zero. The pilot attempted to restart the engine and switched tanks again, to no avail. He ditched the airplane in the bay, and the airplane became submerged after impact.
After the airplane was recovered, the pilot removed the top wings, which revealed water in the fuel tanks. Due to the submersion of the airplane, it could not be determined if water was in the fuel tanks before the accident, and the fuel system could not be examined. The pilot also noticed that the ground wire on the electric pump was loose; however, it could not be determined if the loose wire was a result of impact. Thus, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA058
- Event ID
- 20170125X34153
- Case number
- WPR17LA058
- 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: ae4e3f20db4315c072334b5e696d6b5ec7a4f036d2a508d1f2d9643b2a7fcb42; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:58:10.416Z.