Beech A36 N15PM accident near Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Probable cause

The pilot’s mismanagement of available fuel, which resulted in fuel starvation and a subsequent loss of total engine power.

NTSB analysis

The pilot reported that as he descended toward the destination airport, about 35 to 40 miles out, the engine “stuttered.” He switched the fuel tanks, put the mixture in the full rich position, and the engine returned to normal. About 3 to 4 miles from the destination airport, the engine stuttered again and “went almost idle.” He again switched the fuel tanks and ensured that the mixture was full rich, but the engine did not regain power. He declared an emergency and requested to land on the nearest runway. He realized he would not be able to make it to the runway, so he turned left toward a cemetery and attempted a forced landing; however, the airplane impacted trees and came to rest nose down in heavy vegetation.

Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that 3 gallons of fuel remained in the left fuel tank, which was equal to the unusable quantity for the airplane’s individual fuel tanks. The right fuel tank contained 10 gallons. The examination also revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation. Additionally, a partial-power engine test run was performed using the airplane’s fuel system with no anomaly found.

An engine monitor was recovered from the airplane and a review of the data revealed that, based on the assumption that the pilot started the flight with the left fuel tank selected and that there were 77 gallons of fuel onboard at takeoff, the pilot switched the fuel tanks a total of 7 times, resulting in about 13 gallons of fuel being consumed from the right fuel tank and about 32 gallons of fuel being consumed from the left tank. Based on this calculation, and the 3 gallons of fuel recovered from the left fuel tank after the accident, it is likely that there was only unusable fuel remaining in the left wing fuel tank when the engine lost power. Additionally, the right fuel tank would have contained at least 7 gallons of usable fuel at the time the engine lost power. The pilot indicated that when he lost engine power, he did not attempt to restart the engine because he believed it was running but that it did not have any power. If the pilot had attempted to restart the engine with the right fuel tank selected, the engine likely would have regained power.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for ERA25LA226 for the full record.