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DEN93LA006 · Bellanca 17-30A

17 Oct 1992 · Grand Junction, CO, United States

Classic Wings Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing

From Bolinder Field Tooele Valley Airport (TVY) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
DEN93LA006
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
N14695
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Bolinder Field Tooele Valley Airport (TVY), Tooele, UTTo not recorded
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
Landing · flare/touchdown
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

  • Landing gear, nose gear attach point › Failure, total
  • Landing gear, nose gear attach point › Fatigue

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

WHEN THE PILOT LOWERED THE LANDING GEAR, THE GEAR UNSAFE LIGHT ILLUMINATED. THE PILOT MADE A LOW PASS AND CONTROL TOWER PERSONNEL ADVISED HIM THE GEAR APPEARED TO BE DOWN. WHEN THE AIRPLANE LANDED, IT SWERVED OFF THE RUNWAY AND THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED. POST INCIDENT EXAMINATION DISCLOSED THAT THE UPPER DRAG STRUT BRACKET WAS BROKEN. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION REVEALED THE FRACTURED PIECES 'EXHIBITED FEATURES TYPICAL OF FATIGUE CRACKING' AT MULTIPLE POINTS OF ORIGIN AND 'OVERSTRESS SEPARATIONS.'

Probable cause

FATIGUE FAILURE OF THE NOSE LANDING GEAR UPPER DRAG STRUT BRACKET DUE TO FATIGUE CRACKING.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN93LA006
Event ID
20001211X15855
Case number
DEN93LA006
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-10-18.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 980decf6ffc48a755cdc6c33f537256dd64b629f8d52335661bbdec0896f5290; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:32:09.768Z.