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Atlas / NTSB / ERA25LA269

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA25LA269

2025-07-16 Sylacauga, Alabama, United States Airport · SCD Serious 1 aircraft Status: In work

Registry · N5353E

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BEECH K35

Year of manufacture

1959 · 66 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR I0-470 SERIES (260 hp)

Seats / Engines

5 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19590219

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A6C5C6

Registrant of record

DILLARD ENTERPRISES INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

On July 16, 2025, at 1402 central standard time, a Beech K35, N5353E, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Sylacauga, Alabama. The private pilot sustained serious injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. According to the pilot, the airplane had a remanufactured engine installed about 30 hours prior to the accident. The remanufactured engine had experienced maintenance issues with the magnetos, spark plug fouling, and abnormal cylinder temperatures with the number four cylinder. Maintenance personnel replaced all of the spark plugs with new spark plugs and maintenance runups were conducted that showed no abnormal operation. After departing on the accident flight, about an hour into the flight, the pilot reported that the number one cylinder head temperature dropped below 300 degrees and was accompanied by a “high” exhaust gas temperature. The pilot contacted air traffic control and attempted to divert to Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (GAD), Gadsden, Alabama. The engine began to run rough and the pilot cycled the ignition switch with no change. The pilot declared an emergency, and he was given radar vectors to Merkel Field Sylacauga Municipal Airport (SCD), Sylacauga, Alabama. The airplane could not maintain altitude and he conducted a forced landing into wooded terrain about 1-mile west of SCD. The airplane came to rest inverted and both wings, the fuselage, and the empennage sustained substantial damage. The wreckage was recovered and retained for further examination. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA25LA269.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗