CEN21LA221 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Logansport Cass County Airport (GGP) to Melbourne Municipal John E Miller Field (42A)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA221
- 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 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
- N1875W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Logansport Cass County Airport (GGP), Logansport, INTo Melbourne Municipal John E Miller Field (42A), Melbourne, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1973)
- 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
- 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)
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While at an altitude of 8,000 ft mean sea level, the pilot noticed the engine oil pressure began to fluctuate. The pilot then requested to divert to the nearest airport, and shortly thereafter, the engine began to shake and lost total power. Unable to make the airport, the pilot executed a forced landing to a field. During the landing, the airplane’s nose wheel landing gear impacted a ditch. The nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane came to rest upright. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage.
Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that connecting rods 2 through 5 were fractured and separated from the crankshaft, and the connecting rod bearings were destroyed. Heat distress signatures were noted on the crankshaft connecting rod locations. The connecting rod bearings number 1 and 6 displayed significant scoring consistent with a lack of oil lubrication. It is likely the engine failure was the result of oil starvation to the connecting rod bearings, however, the reason for the oil starvation could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to oil starvation. The reason for the oil starvation could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA221
- Event ID
- 20210517103093
- Case number
- CEN21LA221
- 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: cad65181831c8304669fb4aaf360a2686198abc24ccf12c15c4d0202c6dd3153; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:03:10.588Z.