CEN23LA318 · Beech H35
Beech H35 · Accident on approach
From Gillespie County Airport (T82) to Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA318
- 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 H35
- 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
- N365B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TXTo Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU), Georgetown, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1957)
- 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After the airplane was fueled, the pilot and two passengers completed an uneventful 33-minute cross-country flight. The airplane was not fueled before beginning the 28-minute return flight. The pilot reported that the run-up, takeoff, climb out, and cruise portion of the return flight proceeded normally. While on left base in the airport traffic pattern and after configuring the airplane for landing, he attempted to increase engine power, but the engine did not respond. His attempt to troubleshoot the problem, which included activating the fuel boost pump and changing fuel tanks, was not successful. The airplane impacted an unoccupied two-story residence about 1 mile south-southwest of the airport.
Postaccident examination confirmed continuity of the airframe fuel system. The fuel strainer contained some water, and the screen was partially obstructed with debris. The salvage operator noted that the airplane was stored outside after recovery from the accident site. During an engine test run, the engine speed at full throttle was 2,450 rpm rather than 2,700 rpm as specified for maximum rated power by the manufacturer. The fuel pressure was about 1 psi above the limit. When the fuel mixture to the engine was leaned to within the specification, the engine speed did not change appreciably. Fuel pressure was a field-adjustable parameter, which may account for the finding.
The investigation was unable to determine the reason for the loss of engine power. Since the fuel-injected engine performed normally on the initial flight and for most of the return flight, and considering that the wreckage was outside and subjected to the environment during storage, it is unlikely that the debris observed in the fuel screen was present at the time of the accident and likely did not have a role in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA318
- Event ID
- 20230724192694
- Case number
- CEN23LA318
- 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, coordinates, 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: d947229749b3e823323ecc8689a2f42dfa2c2ccce4c6012ed3ce1572723c421e; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:53:47.060Z.