Beechcraft B36TC N6860W

Summary

On 20 August 2018 at about 11:20 local time, a Beechcraft B36TC registered N6860W was involved in an accident near LaPorte, Texas, United States. One person was on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

20 August 2018 at 11:20

Classification

Accident

Location

LaPorte, Texas, United States

Nearest airport

La Porte Municipal (T41)

Coordinates

29.6725, -95.0697

Aircraft

Beechcraft B36TC

Registration

N6860W

Category

Airplane

Year built

1984

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

La Porte → La Porte

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

VMC

Light

Dawn

NTSB number

CEN18LA340

Nobody was injured.

The loss of engine power due to a torn intercooler hose that resulted in an overly rich fuel mixture, which, when combined with the pilot's activation of the auxiliary fuel pump, flooded the engine.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The student pilot was conducting a local flight. He said that during the initial climb, the engine began to make a "weird very loud sound" and that the engine started to lose power. He stated that the "engine noise started to get louder and power was almost gone." When he activated the auxiliary fuel pump, the engine noise became "real loud" and sounded "very deep." The airplane was descending, and the student pilot performed  a forced landing near a housing development.  During the landing, the right wing separated and the airplane's cabin collapsed inward.  Although a Federal Aviation Administration inspector expressed concerns about the exhaust pipe v-band clamp, the nature of those concerns were not conveyed to the NTSB.  The airplane's engine was removed and later examined and test run at the manufacturer. During a postaccident examination, the v-band clamp was found to be loose and could have allowed manual rotation of the turbo outlet collar. However, it could not be determined what effect this may have had on the accident. The examination also revealed that the induction hoses to and from the intercooler were both torn. If the induction hose to the intercooler failed in flight, manifold pressure would have dropped immediately, and the noise the pilot heard could have been turbo discharge pressure escaping through the tear in the hose. When the engine lost turbo pressure, the fuel pump would have continued to operate with a much richer mixture because it would not have sensed a loss of induction pressure. When the pilot turned on the auxiliary fuel pump, the engine would have been flooded with excess fuel. Thus, it is likely that the torn induction hose combined with the excess fuel from activation of the fuel pump led to the engine being flooded resulting in the loss of engine power.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.