CEN23LA224 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA224
- 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
- N9169Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 53 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he flew west of the departure airport and practiced several turns before returning to perform several landings. During the descent to the airport, he switched fuel tanks from the left to the right fuel tank. The left fuel tank indication was just above the yellow arc, and the right fuel tank indication was about 3/8 of a tank. While the airplane was on the base leg for landing, the engine began to run rough and sustained a loss of engine power. The pilot switched fuel tanks, turned the boost pump on, and tried the ignition, but he was unable to restore engine power. The pilot then performed a forced landing to a road about one mile south of the airport. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the horizonal stabilizer. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the airplane fuel selector was in the left fuel tank position, the auxiliary fuel pump was on, and the mixture was full rich. The left and right fuel tanks contained about 10 gallons of fuel, which indicated in the yellow arc of both fuel gauges. A postaccident engine run was performed at engine speeds of 1,800 rpm and 2,300 rpm with the fuel selector positioned to the right fuel tank, and there were no anomalies that precluded engine operation. The fuel selector operated normally. The engine-driven pump, fuel control assembly, injector distributor valve, fuel injector lines, and fuel injectors were then removed for functional testing; no anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during approach for landing for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA224
- Event ID
- 20230605192311
- Case number
- CEN23LA224
- 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: 7e0eb7c51234f9995ce12be74c2bedab0bb7539f8bd79e21733d65fede6b1e0a; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:41:32.781Z.