NYC07FA228 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From West Georgia Regional Airport / O V Gray Field (CTJ) to Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (RYY)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07FA228
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N8260R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Georgia Regional Airport / O V Gray Field (CTJ), Carrollton, GATo Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (RYY), Marietta, GA
- 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 contamination; Tree(s)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on August 18, 2009**
The pilot conducted a pre-flight inspection and engine run-up, and then attempted to takeoff. The airplane became airborne momentarily; however, the pilot aborted the takeoff, because he felt the engine "miss." The owner of the airplane and the accident pilot subsequently sampled the fuel tanks located in each respective wing, and discovered water was present in all four tanks. After they both felt comfortable that they had drained all the water from the fuel system, the accident pilot again attempted to takeoff. The airplane departed without incident; however, about 15 minutes after takeoff, the airplane experienced a loss of engine power and impacted trees during a subsequent forced landing. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any mechanical abnormalities. The airplane's fuel tanks were compromised; however, through the use of water finding paste, water was identified in the engine-driven fuel pump, fuel control inlet screen, and fuel manifold. The accident flight was the airplane’s first flight since a test flight after its most recent annual inspection, five months prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in a loss of engine power during cruise due to fuel contamination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07FA228
- Event ID
- 20070928X01470
- Case number
- NYC07FA228
- 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: 3334961e5787b699a2429d02abf5ec77d2a155b7c3895ec7d97a65dd6b8607c5; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:17:12.953Z.