NYC07CA076 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Atlantic City International Airport (ACY) to Republic Airport (FRG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07CA076
- 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 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
- N404CT
- Operator
- Kenneth Howard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Atlantic City, NJTo Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NY
- 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot asked the certificated airline transport pilot (ATP) to take the controls while the pilot/owner attempted an unsuccessful engine restart. The ATP executed a forced landing to uneven terrain, and the airplane incurred substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed an absence of fuel, even though 40 gallons were ordered, and paid for by the pilot/owner at the last refueling stop, about 45 nautical miles away. At the refueling stop, the pilot/owner asked a passenger to show the refueler the location of the fuel caps. The refueler only had experience pumping jet fuel to single point aircraft. Per the refueler's request, the passenger advised him when 40 gallons was pumped. The refueling took place in a dark area, and the light for the fuel truck meter was inoperative. The passenger misread the meter, and instead of receiving 40 gallons of fuel, the airplane received 4 gallons. The mistake was noted by another FBO employee after the airplane had departed, but he was unable to contact the pilot/owner. The airplane's fuel gauges were inoperative, and indicated half full, even when empty. Neither pilot visually confirmed the amount of fuel onboard prior to takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to verify the amount of fuel onboard before takeoff. Factors in the accident were the airplane being under fueled, the refueler's experience, the airplane's inoperative fuel gauges, unsuitable terrain for landing, and night lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07CA076
- Event ID
- 20070522X00601
- Case number
- NYC07CA076
- 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: 8081db07071de5c6fd67ba892cec06dc7aeaf0a2724c5c39dff00599da1c3072; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:34:17.192Z.