FTW00LA176 · Bellanca 17-31ATC
Bellanca 17-31ATC · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF) to Eloy Municipal Airport (E60)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA176
- 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 17-31ATC
- 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
- N39827
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, TXTo Eloy Municipal Airport (E60), Eloy, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Separation
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Separation
- Engine assembly, piston › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in cruise flight at 12,500 feet, when the pilot noticed the manifold pressure drop from 37 inches to 19 inches of mercury. The airplane was descending through 5,000 feet when the #3 cylinder and engine cowling separated from the airplane. The pilot initiated a forced landing in a field. During the landing roll, the airplane impacted mesquite trees. The #3 cylinder, piston, and connecting rod were found missing from the engine and were not recovered. Some small metallic debris remained in the oil sump. The original engine maintenance records were lost, and the total time on the engine was estimated to be 1,238 hours on October 1, 1983. On November 6, 1989, after a propeller strike, the engine underwent a top overhaul and crankshaft run-out inspection at an estimated engine total time of 1,615.6 hours. The last 100-hour inspection was conducted on March 28, 2000, at an estimated engine total time of 1,830.55 hours.
Probable cause
The separation of the #3 connecting rod, piston, and cylinder. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA176
- Event ID
- 20001212X21226
- Case number
- FTW00LA176
- 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: ba875c91f305f0c5db9d58737afc5d996cd5183a5cd7e38cc288d77974024a69; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:49:49.203Z.