Unauthorized Pilot Takes Off Without Clearance and Fuel, Crashes While Fleeing Police

The accident in context

on August 31, 2018, a Beech 55 airplane, N10DS, impacted terrain one mile north of the airport. The pilot was seriously injured, and the airplane was substantially damaged. The airplane was registered to Performance Products Plus Inc and operated by a private individual.

Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which operated without a flight plan. The cross-country flight originated at Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH), Oshkosh, Wisconsin. According to information provided by the FAA, the pilot was evading law enforcement and departed KOSH without clearance.

The NTSB final report for N10DS identifies fuel exhaustion as the defining event. On August 31, 2018, the Beech 55 was substantially damaged near Waupaca, Wisconsin, and the pilot was seriously injured. The sequence began at Wittman Regional Airport, where the pilot departed despite being instructed not to take off while law enforcement was pursuing him.

Reconstructing the sequence

The airplane eventually impacted terrain near Waupaca, Wisconsin. The pilot was seriously injured and transported to a hospital prior to be taken into police custody. The airplane was retained for further examination.

the pilot, identified as 47-year-old Andrei Biesinger, was being pursued by authorities for domestic abuse charges. He reportedly nearly impacted an Oshkosh police car when taking off from Wittman Regional Airport without a clearance. Court records indicate that Biesinger has been charged with felony recklessly endangering safety, disorderly conduct and knowingly violating a restraining order.

The pilot departed in his airplane to evade law enforcement officers and flew to an airport to refuel. Law enforcement was awaiting him at that airport, so he did not land and refuel the airplane. During approach to another airport, the airplane impacted a cornfield and the fuselage and wings sustained substantial damage.

The pilot flew to Stevens Point intending to refuel, but law enforcement was waiting there, so he departed without taking on fuel. The aircraft later approached another airport and eventually lost power. The NTSB found no fuel in the airplane. That physical finding turns the story from a sensational ‘rogue pilot’ narrative into a clear chain of decisions that progressively removed the aircraft’s options.

What the evidence shows

No fuel was found in the airplane; thus, the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.

The critical safety point is not the police pursuit itself. It is that the pilot knowingly continued a cross-country flight after the planned fuel stop failed. Once the second airport was bypassed, the fuel state became a hard constraint. The eventual power loss was the predictable end of a shrinking fuel margin.

Why the sequence matters

The reconstructed sequence can be read as a chain of six decision points: Oshkosh / police pursuit → Unauthorized departure → Attempted refuel at Stevens Point → Refuel abandoned → Fuel exhausted → Forced landing near Waupaca. Each step changed the aircraft’s available options. The important analytical point is not to isolate the final impact from the preceding events; the final outcome was produced by the accumulation of the earlier changes in aircraft state, position, workload and available escape options.

The ATC/radar perspective is most useful when it is synchronized with the aircraft evidence. In this case the critical transition is the move from oshkosh / police pursuit to forced landing near waupaca. Once the aircraft reached the later stages of the sequence, the crew had fewer safe alternatives than they had at the beginning. That is the operational value of reconstructing the event rather than describing it only from the final crash scene.

Additional evidence and analysis

The NTSB record also removes one common ambiguity in the story: this was not simply an aircraft that ‘ran out of fuel’ during a normal flight. The pilot had already been denied or warned against departure by airport personnel, had taken off while being pursued by police, and then bypassed the intended refueling opportunity at Stevens Point because law enforcement was waiting there. The fuel state was therefore directly connected to the operational decision to keep moving rather than land and refuel.

The final approach near Waupaca was therefore the end of a chain that had become difficult to reverse. A fuel stop was available; it was abandoned. The airplane continued; fuel continued to decrease. When the engine finally stopped, the remaining choices were limited to an off-airport landing. The investigation makes the case useful because each earlier decision was still reversible, while the final engine stoppage was not.

Key Takeaways / Lessons Learned

The decisive safety issue in this incident was specific to the sequence: Unauthorized departure; Attempted refuel at Stevens Point; Refuel abandoned. Treating those events as isolated anomalies would miss the way they interacted.

Sources and investigation material

• https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/98210/pdf

Accident Facts