BFO85FA067 · Bellanca 17-31A
Bellanca 17-31A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Saratoga County Airport (5B2) to W10 · Manassas, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO85FA067
- 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
- 2 · 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 17-31A
- 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
- N8242R
- Operator
- H. E. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saratoga County Airport (5B2), SARATOGA SPRGS, NYTo W10 · Manassas, VA
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, excessive
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT DEPARTED SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, EN ROUTE TO MANASSAS, VA. WX WAS VFR AND AS THE ACFT APPROACHED GAITHERSBURG, MD, AT 2132 LCL THE PLT CONTACTED DULLES APCH FOR VECTORS THROUGH THE AREA TO MANASSAS. THE ACFT WAS ISSUED A HEADING TO MANASSAS. SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE PLT REPORTED HAVING MANASSAS IN SIGHT. THE THE PLT THEN MADE A VISUAL APCH TO RWY 01 AT WOODBRIDGE APRT. ALTHOUGH A WITNESS REPORTED HEARING THE PLT MAKE RADIO CALLS THAT HE WAS ENTERING THE PATTERNAT MANASSAS, HE REPORTED NEVER SEEING AN ACFT IN THE MANASSAS TRAFFIC PATTERN. ACCORDING TO THE SURVIVING PASSENGER, THEPLT HAD TROUBLE GETTING THE RWY LIGHTS TO ACTIVATE AT THE ARPT (WOODBRIDGE) AND A GO-AROUND WAS ATTEMPTED. HE NEXT RECALLED SEEING TREES AND THE ACFT IMPACTING THE TREES. THE ACFT CONTACTED THE TERRAIN IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE APRX 375 FT NORTH OF THE DEPARTURE END OF RWY 01 AT WOODBRIDGE ARPT. WOODBRIDGE HAS LOW INTENSITY RWY LIGHTS WHICH ARE ON FROM DUSK TO 0400Z. MANASSAS HAD RADIO OPERATED MEDIUM INTENSITY RWY LIGHTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO85FA067
- Event ID
- 20001214X37384
- Case number
- BFO85FA067
- 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 1985-08-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bf4d0a098eea77f3d884ef9b4f2500a93d4bcc3db61408cd96e32a8ad214b806; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:53:17.653Z.