Plane crash blamed on a fuel problem

A plane that crashed into a Kalispell house in 2004 - killing both of the

airplane's occupants - was starved for fuel, according to a federal report.

A plane that crashed into a Kalispell house in 2004 - killing both of the airplane's occupants - was starved for fuel, according to a federal report.

The National Transportation Safety Board released its report Thursday on the Aug. 29, 2004, crash of the 1952 Beech C35 single-engine plane.

The plane has five fuel tanks and not all were empty, according to the board. However, a fuel-tank selector was not engaged on any of the tanks, so the plane received fuel from none of them.

On Aug. 29 at about 12:30 p.m., Steve Schuldheiss, 63, of Lakeside, and Ray Zinke, 63, of Kalispell, died when their plane crashed into a house at 921 Fourth Ave. W. A dog in the house was killed, but the occupants were not home.

The men had left Kalispell City Airport at about noon after the pilot had passed a biennial flight review with a local flight instructor.

According to the federal report, the instructor said

that after signing the pilot's logbook he instructed him to check the fuel.

"There was no record to indicate that the airplane was refueled between the check flight and the accident flight. There was also no record to indicate when the airplane was last refueled prior to the instructional flight."

Several witnesses reported seeing the plane or hearing its engine sputter and then start and stall again as it was about to turn onto its final approach to the airport runway. The plane lost altitude, banked to the left, then "went vertical" before going straight down, witnesses said.

An examination of the plane showed its fuel selector was positioned midway between the off position and the right-main-tank position.

No fuel flows to the engine unless the selector is positioned on an indentation for one of the five tanks. Unless the selector is firmly positioned, the engine chokes without fuel.

"That plane is notorious for doing that," one local pilot said.

Fuel can be briefly forced to flow by using a control-panel pump, but unless the fuel selector also is moved, the plane will receive only a short burst of fuel and will stall again, similar to the event that witnesses reported in the Aug. 29 crash.

In 1999, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive requiring a placard on the fuel tank selector to warn of the no-flow condition between the fuel-tank indications because of reports of engines stopping.

That directive was rescinded in 2000 when the FAA decided the problem is "an operational issue and does not address an unsafe condition."

Schuldheiss was said to be a competent pilot with more than 800 hours' flight time on the type of Beechcraft Bonanza he owned with Zinke.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com