CEN13LA164 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) during an emergency descent
From Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09) to Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA164
- 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
- N93747
- Operator
- Patrick R. Rhodes · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09), Morris, ILTo Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09), Morris, IL
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The engine lost power as the airplane was turning onto the base leg in the traffic pattern. The pilot made a forced landing on a road about 4 miles south of the airport. During the landing roll, the airplane’s right wing struck a wooden road sign. The airplane swerved to the right, went off the road, and came to a stop in a plowed field. The day before the accident flight, the pilot fueled the airplane to capacity (79 gallons total of which 75 gallons were usable) and then flew 754 miles in 5 hours 46 minutes. The airplane was not refueled before the accident flight, which lasted 18 minutes 56 seconds. A postaccident examination showed no usable fuel in either wing tank. A download of data from the airplane's engine monitoring system showed a drop in fuel flow, manifold pressure, and oil pressure, consistent with fuel flow interruption, then fuel exhaustion. Fuel calculations performed after the accident suggested that the loss of engine power was due to fuel exhaustion.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA164
- Event ID
- 20130218X34028
- Case number
- CEN13LA164
- 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. 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: d7107e07dd2d123c0d06059831b23bf1ecc9948db93081cd766652c1c1b19334; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:56:51.648Z.