FTW94FA299 · Bellanca 7ACA
Bellanca 7ACA · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From F64 to F64 · TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94FA299
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Bellanca 7ACA
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N68529
- Operator
- Richard L. Peil · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F64To F64 · TX
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A WITNESS STATED THE AIRPLANE FLEW OVER HIS HOUSE AND 'THE ENGINE STARTED TO SPUTTER AND QUIT.' THE AIRPLANE LANDED IN A FIELD AND WAS FUELED WITH 4.5 GALLONS OF 100 OCTANE LOW LEAD AVGAS. THE AIRPLANE DEPARTED AND FLEW TO THE FLYING OAKS AIRPORT, LAKESIDE, TEXAS. THE PILOT FUELED THE AIRPLANE WITH 5.7 GALLONS OF 87 OCTANE UNLEADED AUTO FUEL. THE AIRPLANE TOOK OFF TO THE NORTH AND RETURNED TO THE AIRSTRIP WITH AN ENGINE PROBLEM. THE PILOT BELIEVED HE WAS HAVING A FUEL STARVATION PROBLEM. THE PILOT CUT THE FUEL CAP GASKET TO OPEN UP THE VENT HOLE. THE AIRPLANE TOOK OFF TO THE SOUTH. AFTER LIFT OFF THE AIRPLANE ANGLED OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY AND WHEN THE AIRPLANE REACHED 30 TO 40 FEET ABOVE THE TREES, THE ENGINE STARTED TO 'RUN ROUGH.' THE AIRPLANE TURNED TOWARDS THE RUNWAY, AND ACCORDING TO ONE WITNESS, 'THE ENGINE QUIT AND THE LEFT WING STALLED AND PLANE WENT IN-STRAIGHT.' AN INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE DID NOT REVEAL ANY ANOMALIES THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN A LOSS OF POWER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM REQUIRED AIRSPEED FOR FLIGHT. A FACTOR WAS THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94FA299
- Event ID
- 20001206X02238
- Case number
- FTW94FA299
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 008da0248869e054d3a366e51b29e9efd681d7d21f4067fae146be73e5275bf4; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:00:25.536Z.