CHICAGO – A single-engine aircraft crash in 2019 in a cornfield near Kankakee County that left one person dead has been ruled as fuel starvation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The NTSB found the Beech A-36 Bonanza had been flying around 3,000 feet when it was forced to the ground after one of the four tanks ran out of fuel. The engine had been drawing from the single tank at the time, which ran dry. The remaining three tanks were fueled.
The agency did not rule pilot error as the cause of the crash, even though it is a pilot’s responsibility to balance the plan by switching engine fuel draw on rotation from the various tanks.
