CEN19LA127 · Beech 50 E50
Beech 50 E50 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From El Dorado Springs Memorial Airport (87K) to Atkinson Municipal Airport (PTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA127
- 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 50 E50
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 50
- 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
- N29Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Dorado Springs Memorial Airport (87K), El Dorado Springs, MOTo Atkinson Municipal Airport (PTS), Pittsburg, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1957)
- 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 · 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 power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was returning the multiengine airplane to his home base following an annual inspection other maintenance; the accident flight was the airplane's first flight since the work was performed. After climbing to about 3,000 ft mean sea level (msl), the pilot configured the airplane for cruise flight. The pilot heard the right engine emit "sputtering" noises and backfire. The pilot advanced the throttle of the left engine and then noticed a "large smoke trail" emit from the left engine about 1 minute after the right engine began sputtering. The pilot concluded that the two engines were no longer producing adequate power to remain airborne and performed a forced landing to a tilled dirt field, during which the nose landing gear collapsed, resulting in substantial damage. Signatures consistent with detonation were documented on the left engine Nos. 4 and 6 cylinder assemblies, and the right engine No. 2 cylinder assembly. Oil-covered particles were found in the oil screens from both engines; the source of these particles could not be determined. The reason for the detonation in both engines could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power on both engines due to detonation for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA127
- Event ID
- 20190428X25200
- Case number
- CEN19LA127
- 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: ae789a5cce248463893148c29b808737bf8ad7bf4a36005f086304169b9fd6cd; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:49:27.201Z.