CEN17LA328 · Beech A36
Gulf Central Aviation Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Louisiana Regional Airport (REG) to Louisiana Regional Airport (REG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA328
- 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 A36
- 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
- N48TZ
- Operator
- Gulf Central Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisiana Regional Airport (REG), Gonzales, LATo Louisiana Regional Airport (REG), Gonzales, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1980)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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
During the initial climb on an instructional flight, the private pilot and instructor noticed a partial loss of engine power. The pilot performed a forced landing into a hay field and the airplane nosed over. Following the accident, the mechanic who normally performed maintenance removed and discarded all twelve spark plugs, as several were worn. A subsequent examination and test run of the engine revealed a leaking fuel hose due to a loose B-nut. The loss of engine power was consistent with an inadequate fuel supply due to a fuel line leak. Further, it is likely that the worn spark plugs would also have contributed to the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to inadequate maintenance, including worn spark plugs and a leaking fuel hose fitting.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA328
- Event ID
- 20170824X40210
- Case number
- CEN17LA328
- 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: 8975dc99c16057be5bd83a5c5104b504d4512416a64e5b5f568d0e1698abe87f; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:45:09.041Z.