CEN17LA357 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Garner Field (UVA) to Mc Alester Regional Airport (MLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA357
- 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
- N18403
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Garner Field (UVA), Uvalde, TXTo Mc Alester Regional Airport (MLC), McAlister, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Approach
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that the flight originated with full fuel tanks. About 8 minutes after takeoff, he noticed fuel leaking from the left fuel tank cap for a short period. The pilot continued the flight, switching fuel tanks every 25 minutes. The flight continued uneventfully until the engine lost total power while the airplane was entering the downwind leg to land. The pilot switched fuel tanks and attempted to restart the engine to no avail. The pilot performed a forced landing in a field; the airplane touched down hard and contacted a hay bale, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings and compromised the fuel system. Postaccident examination of the main fuel tank caps revealed the O-rings were cracked. Maintenance records showed that the O-rings were replaced about 17 months before the accident. Although it is unknown how much fuel leaked from the fuel cap during the flight, the pilot reported that, about 50 minutes before the accident, both fuel tanks were indicating about 3/4 full; thus, it is doubtful that enough fuel would have leaked to result in fuel exhaustion. A postaccident engine test run was conducted with the fuselage strapped down on a trailer; an alternate fuel system was rigged to both the left and right fuel inlet lines at the fuselage. The engine started without hesitation and ran smoothly up to 1,500 rpm using the left fuel tank inlet. The test was repeated using the right fuel tank inlet, and the engine performed in the same manner. The rpm was not increased any higher due to the security of the fuselage during the test. Postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal evidence of preimpact malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation; thus, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA357
- Event ID
- 20170918X44114
- Case number
- CEN17LA357
- 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: 6ea3cb15040cdcc840293cd95705b68975ec287388fb3df0d17d885ed37f40f4; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:51:30.877Z.