What happened
During a nighttime departure, the pilot successfully took off and retracted the landing gear. While climbing, the pilot began a turn toward the outbound heading and performed several cockpit adjustments, including adjusting both propeller controls, turning on the overhead light, and setting the heat selector levers to the center position.
As the pilot was in the process of adjusting the mixture controls, air traffic control provided a frequency change. At that moment, both engines lost power without warning. The pilot declared an emergency and attempted to restart the engines; however, these efforts were unsuccessful. Following the failure, the pilot moved the mixture controls to the 'cut' position and performed an emergency wheels-up landing in a field. The aircraft sustained substantial damage during the impact.
The investigation
An examination of the fuel system confirmed that there was sufficient fuel on board and no contaminants were present. Investigators verified that fuel flow could be established from the tanks to the fuel control units using the electric fuel pump.
During the mechanical inspection, the left engine was started and underwent a test run, which revealed no anomalies. While the right engine could not be operated due to its unsafe condition, a physical examination of that engine also showed no anomalies.