FTW97LA007 · Hispano Aviacion HA-200 SAETA HA-200 SAE
Hispano Aviacion HA-200 SAETA HA-200 SAE · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT) to Childress Municipal Airport (CDS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA007
- 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
- 0 · 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
Hispano Aviacion HA-200 SAETA HA-200 SAE
- Aircraft type
- Hispano Aviacion HA-200
- 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
- N3179K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT), Wichita, KSTo Childress Municipal Airport (CDS), Childress, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Out of balance
- Fuel system, fuel jettison system › Failure, partial
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight the airplane experienced a fuel feed problem from the left wing tip fuel tank to the rear fuselage fuel tank. The pilot made the decision to execute a precautionary landing at the Elk City Municipal Airport to correct the fuel imbalance problem. While on short final to runway 17, at approximately 100 feet AGL, the pilot attempted to jettison the fuel from both wing tip fuel tanks in order to maintain aircraft control. The jettison cap opened fully on the right wing tip tank and only opened partially on the left wing tip tank. The pilot applied full right aileron and rudder; however, the airplane's left wing tip 'hit' the grass to the left of the runway. During the landing roll, the airplane veered off the runway to the left, crossed a drainage ditch, and came to rest upright approximately 650 feet from the runway. Examination of the left wing tip fuel tank revealed that the dump cable release was binding, and initially pulling on the cable did not retract the one ball bearing found protruding from the cylinder wall. After pulling the cable about 10 times it freed up and began to retract the ball bearing.
Probable cause
The loss of aircraft control due to a fuel imbalance as a result of a partial failure of the fuel jettison system. A factor was that fuel could not be transferred from the left wing tip fuel tank to the rear fuselage fuel tank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA007
- Event ID
- 20001208X06873
- Case number
- FTW97LA007
- 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: 27a448e3e5c44a9326e0ab0ee15abf73f955da699f69257c8105ae8bd7311c10; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:00:13.961Z.