CEN20FA096 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM) to Breezy Point Airport (8MN3)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20FA096
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N3266Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), Minneapolis, MNTo Breezy Point Airport (8MN3), Breezy Point, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1995)
- 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 (total)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft systems
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Radar data indicate that the airplane was in cruise flight about 1,000 ft above ground level (agl) when it climbed about 300 ft and decelerated from about 170 to 110 knots groundspeed. The airplane subsequently turned away from populated areas and descended at 70 to 75 knots groundspeed with a steady vertical speed. About 100 ft agl, the airplane turned right and impacted forested terrain, which resulted in a postcrash fire. The flight profile was consistent with a power loss, followed by a forced landing attempt.
Examination at the accident site revealed the flexible fuel hose b-nut connecting the firewall fuel outlet fitting to the inlet fitting on the engine-driven fuel pump was only finger tight, and green ‘torque putty’ did not align between the b-nut shoulder of the outlet fitting and the fuel pump’s inlet. Both findings were consistent with improper torque application during maintenance. The loose b-nut could have resulted in allowing air to enter the fuel line which would result in a loss of engine power.
Examination at the recovery facility and an engine test run revealed no other anomalies that would have precluded normal engine operation. The engine was installed about 4 months prior to the accident and had accumulated about 21 hours. No maintenance was recorded after the inspections that were conducted in conjunction with the engine installation.
An autopsy revealed the pilot had moderate-to-severe atherosclerosis, but there was no evidence of any acute or past coronary event. While the pilot was at increased risk for an acute cardiac event, there was no evidence this occurred, and the pilot’s coronary artery disease was determined to not be a factor in the accident.
Probable cause
Inadequate maintenance that resulted in improper torque to the engine-driven fuel pump inlet fitting, which led to a loss of engine power and forced landing into unsuitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20FA096
- Event ID
- 20200222X62353
- Case number
- CEN20FA096
- 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: ebdfd0d29d6792383f7dfefd741732c91abf42a14d376035ac167b41dd940c04; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:12:06.566Z.