LAX05CA016 · Bellanca BL17-30
Bellanca BL17-30 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Gillespie Field (SEE) to Henderson Executive Airport (HND)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA016
- 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 BL17-30
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca BL17
- 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
- N4894V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CATo Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Las Vegas, NV
- 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 pattern turn to base
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane experienced a loss of engine power and collided with the airport perimeter fence while landing. The pilot stated that as he approached the vicinity of the airport, he confirmed that the fuel selector was on the left tank. He verified that the cockpit fuel quantity gauge showed about 3/8 of fuel remaining in the left main tank, which he equated to be about 10 gallons. He opted to make a right traffic pattern with the intention to land on runway17R, and kept the fuel selector on the left main tank. While executing a turn onto base leg, about 1/8 mile from the airport, the pilot attempted to add power and the engine lost power. Upon touchdown, the airplane collided with the airport's perimeter fence, damaging the right wing. After egressing the airplane the pilot examined the airplane's fuel tanks. His examination revealed that both the left main and auxiliary fuel tank were empty, with the right main tank having about 18 gallons of fuel remaining. He reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane. He opined that if the airplane was at a sufficient altitude he would have been able to switch to the right tank and successfully restart the engine.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate fuel management, which resulted in fuel starvation and a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA016
- Event ID
- 20041203X01910
- Case number
- LAX05CA016
- 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, coordinates. 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: f9816873bb93481ea3be192f0e028412e3c801b71435ad6f51e5451c387f4bca; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:06:56.787Z.