SEA91FA220 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA91FA220
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Unknown
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
- N14698
- Operator
- Thomas B. & Pamela Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Denver, COTo Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UT
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Arlington, WY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE LOW TIME, RECENTLY CERTIFICATED PRIVATE PILOT DEPARTED DENVER, COLORADO, ON A VFR FLIGHT TO OGDEN, UTAH, ABOUT 1150 LOCAL AND REPORTED 6 NM SOUTH OF LARAMIE (LAR), WYOMING, AT 10500 FEET AT 1250 LOCAL. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED IN A CLEARCUT AREA 31 NM WEST OF LAR AT 9,200 FEET MSL APPROXIMATELY 15 MINUTES LATER. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF SIGNIFICANT ROTATIONAL SCARRING ON THE PROPELLER NOR WITHIN THE ENGINE. TREE IMPACTS AT THE EDGE OF THE CLEARCUT WERE CONSISTENT WITH A RIGHT WING DOWN ATTITUDE. THE PILOT FILED WITH 4 HOURS 50 MINUTES OF FUEL ABOARD. A POST CRASH FIRE CONSUMED MOST OF THE AIRCRAFT. THERE WERE NO WITNESSES TO THE ACCIDENT. THE ENGINE WAS DISASSEMBLED AND THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION NOTED.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON. FACTORS CONTRIUBTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE TREES AND THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE ABOVE THE TREES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA91FA220
- Event ID
- 20001212X17974
- Case number
- SEA91FA220
- 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: 00884a89483d339d2a37f5454b0e8583d3538479bed54b65b1f9a38cb1de7d61; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:37:00.520Z.