ATL97LA045 · Bellanca 17-30
Bellanca 17-30 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (KRDU) to Daniel Field (DNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA045
- 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
Bellanca 17-30
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 17
- 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
- N7312V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (KRDU), Raleigh, NCTo Daniel Field (DNL), Augusta, GA
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; Tree(s)
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Fuel system, fuel control › Leak
- Fuel system, fuel control › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot experienced a loss of engine power en route to his destination. He initiated an emergency descent for a forced landing. The airplane collided with two trees in the intended landing area. According to the pilot, the airplane had a fuel endurance of 4.8 hours, and he had flown about 3.0 hours since the last refueling. Examination of the engine assembly disclosed that there was a fuel leak around the shaft in the metering unit. The nature of the leak was a steady stream, such that, it was not possible to flow test the unit. Smaller leaks were also found in the fuel pump from the shaft seal and the adjustable orifice o-ring. The control linkage on the fuel metering unit and the throttle body were excessively worn. No fuel was recovered from the fuel system during on-site examination.
Probable cause
excessive wear of the fuel metering unit/shaft, which resulted in a fuel leak and premature exhaustion of the fuel supply.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA045
- Event ID
- 20001208X07485
- Case number
- ATL97LA045
- 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: 797d97a2dc02aff5bbb840032116b60bff4ebbb1e836c03f5d0db5d6ae26332f; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:29:55.074Z.