WPR21LA075 · Beech 35
Beech 35 · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From LPC · Lake Havasu City, AZ to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21LA075
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 35
- 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
- N5474D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From LPC · Lake Havasu City, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1958)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the pilot entered the vicinity to the destination airport, he switched the fuel selector from the right main tank (which was indicating close to empty) to the left main tank (indicating slightly less than half full). As he manipulated the selector handle, the engine experienced a total loss of power. Concerned that the fuel selector was malfunctioning, the pilot placed the selector back on the right tank and attempted to troubleshoot the failure. Despite his efforts, the pilot was unable to retore the engine power and made on off-airport landing into a fence. A postaccident examination of the engine and fuel system revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The airplane had been modified with a fuel-injected engine. The fuel system was designed for excess fuel at the engine-driven fuel pump to be routed back to the left main wing tank. At normal operating power, about 8-10 gph would be returned to the left tank (as opposed to the carbureted equipped airplane, which would return about 3 gph). The pilot used all the fuel from the right-wing tank and the excess fuel was being ported to the left main tank. The pilot starved the engine for fuel while on the right tank selection and that likely resulted in air entering the fuel system. When the pilot switched to the left main tank, he was either too late or did not allow enough time for the air to purge with the electric fuel pump activated. As a result of this fuel mismanagement, the engine was unable to receive adequate fuel to restart.
Probable cause
The pilot’s mismanagement of fuel, which resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21LA075
- Event ID
- 20201228102464
- Case number
- WPR21LA075
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-12-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b214961e953ed27b359fcb71b4fab1fa2ab0a1f531f6037a59e522134ac11530; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:31:39.357Z.