MIA99LA234 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI) to Nashville International Airport (BNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA234
- 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
- N42VB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), Bristol, TNTo Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TN
- 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
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, replacement, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight about 49 minutes after takeoff, the pilot declared a mayday and reported that the engine quit. Unable to land at the closest airport, he maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing to a field and collided with trees while descending. The Nos. 1, 2, and 4 connecting rods were broken; heat distress was noted at cylinder Nos. 1, 2, and 4 connecting rod journals. Fretting was noted at the upper support boss for the No. 2 main bearing. Damage to the bearing saddle area on both crankcase halves for the No. 2 main bearing was noted. Brown discoloration was noted at the No. 2 main bearing journal. The engine was overhauled December 1985, installed April 1986, and January 1994, the Nos. 3, and 6 cylinders were replaced and the top of the crankcase was sealed. The engine accumulated approximately 995 hours since overhaul and 328 hours since installation of the replacement cylinders. The thru bolt located adjacent to the fretted support boss of the No. 2 main bearing is used to secure the Nos. 2, and 3 cylinders. The engine oil was changed last approximately 65 hours earlier; the engine manufacturer recommends oil change each 25 hours.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to failure of maintenance personnel to assure that the thru bolt nut at the Nos. 2 and 3 cylinders was adequately torqued following removal and replacement of the No. 3 cylinder approximately 328 hours earlier. Also, the unsuitable terrain encountered by the pilot during the forced landing. A factor in the accident was the operation of the airplane by the owner exceeding the recommended oil change intervals.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA234
- Event ID
- 20001212X19599
- Case number
- MIA99LA234
- 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: ac456e1822e6bf1b8292ed0aa30fd6d990babaabf4567bf57161f3f8feb09afb; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:52:25.179Z.