CEN20LA262 · Beech F35
Beech F35 · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Stan Stamper Municipal Airport (HHW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA262
- 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 F35
- 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
- N4219B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stan Stamper Municipal Airport (HHW), Hugo, OKTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 65 years (built 1955)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Electrical system malfunction/failure
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight and after the pilot engaged the autopilot, a portable air conditioning unit was plugged into the airplane’s electrical system. When the unit was plugged into the system, the pilot heard a loud noise like a “firecracker” from the engine compartment, and the autopilot disengaged. The pilot ran the emergency checklist for an electrical failure and noticed a drop in engine rpm. Attempts to rectify the electrical issue and regain engine rpms were unsuccessful.
The pilot located a private 3,000 ft grass airstrip to land on. As he approached the airstrip, he noticed a stack of large round hay bales on the edge of the runway. The pilot felt that trying to pull up over the bales would induce a stall, so he turned to the right just as the airplane touched down. About 100 ft after the airplane touched down, the left wing impacted the hay bales, which caused the airplane to spin left and come to a sudden stop. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
A postaccident examination of the airplane electrical systems did not determine the reasons for the reported electrical problems. The examination of the engine revealed that it was poorly maintained; however, it was not clear if this condition resulted in the loss of engine rpm or if the loss in rpm was related to the electrical system.
Probable cause
Electrical and engine problems for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA262
- Event ID
- 20200705X55030
- Case number
- CEN20LA262
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-07-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b74181d325fa38cc24ea5cddd6f06ffefb61ec7cbaea04e735ded2bd9e539151; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:02:21.972Z.