ERA20LA044 · Beech E35
Spaceport Aviation Beech E35 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE) to Florida Keys Marathon International Airport (MTH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20LA044
- 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 E35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N3315C
- Operator
- Spaceport Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, FLTo Florida Keys Marathon International Airport (MTH), Marathon, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 65 years (built 1954)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While climbing on course shortly after takeoff on a cross-country flight, the engine briefly ran roughly before losing partial power. The private pilot maneuvered the airplane and executed an off airport forced landing with the landing gear retracted. A postimpact fire on the right side of the airplane ensued after it came to rest, and the airplane was destroyed.
Examination of the engine following accident revealed the throttle control cable was separated from the intact carburetor throttle control lever. Examination of a bolt with an attached washer, a separate washer, and a castellated nut found in the engine compartment revealed the nut was not self-locking and the tare torque was no greater than 0.2 pound-force-inch. There were no remains of a cotter pin in the recovered drilled bolt. Although the mixture control cable remained attached to the intact mixture control lever, a castellated nut and cotter pin were not attached to the bolt. Further examination of the engine and its systems otherwise revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical failure or malfunction; Given this evidence, it is likely that the loss of engine power was due to the separation of the throttle control cable from the carburetor, which rendered sustained flight impossible.
A review of the maintenance records indicated that more than 13 months before the accident, the pressure carburetor was overhauled then reinstalled. It was the subject of two scheduled inspections before the accident. The maintenance records did not document any subsequent work to the throttle or mixture control cables. The mechanic indicated that he was certain that the proper hardware to secure the throttle cable to the throttle control lever was installed at carburetor installation and during both subsequent scheduled inspections. Although the nut lacked any appreciable tare torque, it could not be determined when it separated or if the mechanic failed to install a cotter pin to secure the throttle cable to the throttle control lever more than 13 months and a minimum of 192 flight hours earlier. Although possible, it is unlikely that the mechanic would have twice overlooked the lack of proper securing hardware during the subsequent scheduled inspections.
Probable cause
The separation of the throttle control cable from the carburetor throttle control lever resulting in the near total loss of engine power. Contributing to the separation of the throttle cable was the lack of proper securing hardware by unknown maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20LA044
- Event ID
- 20191123X40229
- Case number
- ERA20LA044
- 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, cause areas. 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: 3e82c2c81cb1a167475935221223c98137ef167e12a52bf89b8f1064ff351790; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:40:43.028Z.