FTW84FA083 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hale County Airport (PVW) to Creekside Airport (03XS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84FA083
- 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 17-30A
- 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
- N4097B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hale County Airport (PVW), Plainview, TXTo Creekside Airport (03XS), Hebbronville, TX
- 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 · descent
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT PROCEEDED WITHOUT INCIDENT UNTIL THE PLT CONTACTED HOUSTON ARTCC. THE PLT REQUESTED THE DESTINATION WX & WAS TOLD THAT THE ENTIRE AREA WAS IFR. THE CLOSEST ARPT REPORTING VFR CONDITIONS WAS AT MCALLEN, TX, APRX 80 MI SOUTHEAST. THE PLT THEN ADVISED THAT HE DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH FUEL TO REACH MCALLEN. AT 1828 CST, HE ADVISED THAT THE DESTINATION ARPT WAS SIGHTED BELOW. THE CONTROLLER ACKNOWLEDGED & CLEARED THE PLT TO CHANGE FREQUENCY FOR LANDING. ABOUT 7 MIN LATER, THE ACFT CRASHED IN OPEN MESQUITE RANGE WHILE IN A SLIGHT NOSE DOWN, SLIGHT LEFT BANK ATTITUDE, AT HI SPEED. RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT AFTER THE PLT'S LAST RADIO TRANSMISSION, THE ACFT OVERFLEW THE ARPT, TURNED LEFT & PROCEEDED NORTH, AWAY FROM THE ARPT, ABOUT 5 MI NORTH, IT MADE A 360 TURN, THEN CONTINUED 2 TO 3 MI FURTHER NORTH. A 180DEG TURN WAS THEN MADE & RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. DURING THAT TIME, THE ALT VARIED CONSIDERABLY. A RANCH FOREMAN HEARD THE ACFT FLYING AROUND BEFORE IT CRASHED. HE REPORTED AN OVERCAST WITH FOG & VISIBILITY LESS THAN 1/8 MI.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84FA083
- Event ID
- 20001214X45286
- Case number
- FTW84FA083
- 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 1983-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a877fea402292410d6c89bebd64c97fdd344145028b2fe003cbba58e859e75cd; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:46:36.615Z.