FTW92LA141 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: gear not retracted during initial climb
From Possum Kingdom Airport (F35) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA141
- 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 17-30A
- 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
- N9742E
- Operator
- Johnson, Kenneth D. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Possum Kingdom Airport (F35), Graford, TXTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, 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
- Gear not retracted
- 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
- Throttle/power lever, linkage › Loose
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Graford, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE SECOND PILOT (OWNER/OPERATOR) AND INSTRUMENT FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR DEPARTED A LAKE RESORT AIRPORT DURING VFR CONDITIONS ON WHAT WAS TO HAVE BEEN A DUAL INSTRUCTION CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. DURING THE VFR INITIAL TAKEOFF CLIMB THE LANDING GEAR DID NOT RETRACT. THE SECOND PILOT WHO WAS THE MANIPULATOR OF THE CONTROLS MADE A VFR ENTRY FOR A LEFT DOWNWIND LANDING AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. ABEAM THE RUNWAY NUMBERS THE ENGINE LOST ALL POWER. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT MAINTAINING ENOUGH ALTITUDE TO CLEAR THE TREES. THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR MANIPULATED THE CONTROLS AND MADE AN EMERGENCY FORCED LANDING INTO THE WATER. DURING RECOVERY OF THE AIRPLANE IT WAS NOTED THAT THE JAM NUT ON THE THROTTLE CABLE WAS LOOSE AND THE TACHOMETER DRIVE CABLE RING NUT WAS LOOSE. FOLLOWING THE RECOVERY AND SECURING OF THE JAM NUT AND RING NUT, AN ENGINE TEST RUN THROUGHOUT THE POWER RANGES WAS CONDUCTED WITHOUT ANOMALIES. THE AIRPLANE RECORDS AND TACHOMETER INDICATED 15.76 HOURS SINCE THE LAST ANNUAL INSPECTION. THE GEAR MICROSWITCH TESTED SATISFACTORY. WATER IN THE GEAR MOTOR AND POWERPACK PREVENTED TESTING OF THE GEAR RETRACTION SYSTEM.
Probable cause
LOOSE JAM NUT ON THROTTLE CABLE. FACTORS WERE INADEQUATE ANNUAL INSPECTION AND UNSUITABLE TERRAIN AND WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA141
- Event ID
- 20001211X14661
- Case number
- FTW92LA141
- 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: c976cd057bc7a1e38bfe4d91c362f256394d07a1f56e483c1965761e44119d16; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:16:42.130Z.