DFW08CA149 · Bellanca 14-13-3A
Bellanca 14-13-3A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Wolfe Air Park (3T2) to San Marcos Regional Airport (KHYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08CA149
- 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
- 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 14-13-3A
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 14
- 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
- N1255R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wolfe Air Park (3T2), Manvel, TXTo San Marcos Regional Airport (KHYI), San Marcos, 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 · cruise
- Defining eventThe 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 (partial)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
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 was within 5 miles of his destination airport at the termination of a short cross country flight at 2000 feet above ground level. When the pilot reduced throttle to begin his descent the engine went to idle and throttle control was no longer available. The pilot decided to attempt to make his destination airport but landed in an open field short of the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing main spar. The pilot received no injuries. Upon investigation of the engine it was discovered that the throttle cable clevis swag failed at the cable housing and throttle control was no longer available.
Probable cause
The failure of the throttle cable clevis swage. Contributing to the accident was the uneven terrain available for landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08CA149
- Event ID
- 20080714X01036
- Case number
- DFW08CA149
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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, cause areas. 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: 2561948a1948300d718b83d795d841b6c9f201fe452c0fcd81cd81053d791d7f; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:54:09.655Z.