FTW92FA145 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Laredo, TX to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92FA145
- 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
- 4 · 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
- N8230R
- Operator
- King, Jay · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laredo, TXTo David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Tomball, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD LANDED AT A CLOSED AIRPORT EN ROUTE TO HIS DESTINATION. HE TOLD WITNESSES AT THE AIRPORT THAT THERE WERE THUNDERSTORMS AT HIS DESTINATION, AND THAT WAS WHY HE DECIDED TO STOP. HE THEN REBOARDED THE AIRPLANE AND DEPARTED. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED FLYING AT ABOUT 100 FEET AGL IN AN AREA ABOUT 5 MILES NORTH OF THE CLOSED AIRPORT. WITNESSES WHO WERE IN A VAN STATED THAT THEY OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE DROP BELOW A TREE LINE AND THEN REAPPEAR. AS THE AIRPLANE PASSED PARALLEL TO THE VAN, IT WAS OBSERVED TO ENTER A STEEP RIGHT TURN AND THEN NOSE DOWN INTO THE GROUND. NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THE PILOT'S CERTIFICATE HAD BEEN ISSUED UNDER AN ALIAS WHICH THE DEA AND CUSTOMS SERVICE SAID THE PILOT HAD USED OVER THE YEARS. THE PILOT'S TOXICOLOGY STUDY INDICATED 0.32 MILLIGRAMS PER LITER OF METHAQUALONE (QUAALUDE) IN HIS LIVER TISSUE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92FA145
- Event ID
- 20001211X14855
- Case number
- FTW92FA145
- 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: b115b8c4b0b96d597ae0ecc787e47e10edc8cac16462a40cdd6c70e4da9c2a12; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:09:01.465Z.