CEN21LA457 · Beech 95-B55 (T42A)
Beech 95-B55 (T42A) · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA457
- 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 95-B55 (T42A)
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N85RR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1970)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger departed on a flight to add fuel to the airplane’s fuel tanks. The airplane was originally manufactured with 2 main fuel tanks and 2 auxiliary fuel tanks. A modification installed 2 additional wingtip tanks that fed into the main tanks via transfer pumps. When in cruise flight, the pilot selected the main fuel tanks and turned on the wingtip tank transfer pumps. However, one light indicating that the pump was operating did not illuminate. The pilot reselected the auxiliary tanks and decided to return to his home airport. The pilot entered the airport traffic pattern and he selected the main fuel tanks but noted that “not much fuel [was] showing in the left main tank.” Due to traffic already in the pattern, the pilot had to perform additional maneuvering to remain clear and then reestablish a final approach. On short final, the pilot determined that the landing was assured and selected full flaps. Shortly after, the left engine stopped producing power. The pilot knew the airplane would not make the runway with the landing gear and flaps down. He performed an off-field landing resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage, elevators, and wings. The pilot informed a Federal Aviation Administration inspector that the reason for the loss of engine power was due to fuel mismanagement.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA457
- Event ID
- 20210927103975
- Case number
- CEN21LA457
- 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: b86b4d27fff1fb12feb13500a0735058f5d0d8c868c308d7002014b334ac1078; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:35:14.973Z.