CHI01LA189 · Bellanca 7KCAB
Bellanca 7KCAB · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Fox River Airport (96C) to New Garden Airport (N57)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA189
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 7KCAB
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- 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
- N86960
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Fox River Airport (96C), Rochester, WITo New Garden Airport (N57), Toughkenamon, PA
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- 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
The pilot said he was cruising at 9,500 feel mean sea level on a direct course from Rochester, Wisconsin, to Kent State, Ohio. Approximately 2 hours into the flight the engine sputtered and quit. The pilot said he attempted to restart the engine but was unsuccessful. The pilot said, "[I] Asked Toledo Approach for a vector to the nearest airport. [I] Tried to make Adrian (Lenawee County Airport, Adrian, Michigan), but could not." The pilot said he selected a green field and proceeded with a "dead stick landing". The pilot said, "On roll out [I] noticed [a] drainage ditch and tried to maneuver to avoid it, but [the] RT gear went over the edge and [the] plane came to [an] abrupt stop." An examination of the airplane's fuel tanks showed right fuel tank empty and the left fuel tank full of fuel. The screens in the two fuel pick-up ports in the left fuel tank were completely blocked with debris. No other anomalies with the airplane were found. Later examination of the fuel pick-up fittings and finger screens revealed the debris to be hardened mud and mulch similar to that found in nests made by wasps. The airplane underwent an annual inspection 6 days before the accident. The airplane was flown to American Champion, Rochester, Wisconsin, to have new wings installed 3 days before the accident. Annual inspection criteria calls for the finger strainers in the pick-up fittings to be pulled and inspected for screen damage and debris. At the factory, the fuel pick-up fittings were determined serviceable and re-installed in the new wings' fuel tanks. According to the owner/pilot, the airplane flew 8 hours between the annual inspection and the accident.
Probable cause
Unsuitable terrain for landing encountered by the pilot during the forced landing attempt. Factors relating to this accident were fuel starvation caused by foreign material blocking the fuel tank lines which led to the engine failure, annual inspection criteria not complied with, and the ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA189
- Event ID
- 20010702X01294
- Case number
- CHI01LA189
- 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 2001-06-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b56a96492392d794e0f8f5d78107631eb4b46a2ea5abfd97a3e27e4330677c9b; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:50:01.457Z.