WPR23LA077 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA077
- 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 V35B
- 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
- N65Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot planned on remaining in the traffic pattern for night flight. Shortly after takeoff, while on the upwind leg of the traffic pattern, the cabin door opened; the pilot stated that he slowed the airplane by using the throttle. He added that it was dark and that he could not see the instruments, but he could see the engine control knobs. The pilot realized the airplane was descending toward a building when he heard the tower controller say “climb, climb, climb.” The pilot then “pushed the throttle in.” The airplane continued to descend and impacted a building. Additionally, the pilot added that due to the dark conditions, he may have mistakenly pulled the mixture control knob to slow the airplane down instead of using the throttle.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Continuity of the throttle, propeller, and mixture controls was established from the cockpit to their respective control arms. Examination of the throttle revealed the throttle knob was about 1 inch from full forward, the mixture control was about 2 inches from full forward, and the propeller controller lever was about ½ inch from full forward. The pilot likely inadvertently manipulated the mixture to a lean position instead of the pulling back on the throttle, which resulted in the reduction of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadvertent use of the mixture control instead of the throttle, which resulted in fuel starvation and the subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA077
- Event ID
- 20221227106499
- Case number
- WPR23LA077
- 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 2022-12-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: df0ca0633e20c34a9c1a1813b97485357921aeb8cd0551ea35e6b1481e2c344e; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:39:07.941Z.