CEN14FA185 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI) to Ohio University Airport (UNI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA185
- 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
- N8259R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), BRISTOL/JOHNSON/KINGSPORT, TNTo Ohio University Airport (UNI), Albany, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1972)
- 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 base
- 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 control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was using flight following services from air traffic control during the return leg of the cross-country flight, and, about 12 miles from the destination, the pilot reported to the approach controller that he had the airport in sight. Two witnesses reported seeing the airplane traveling toward the airport and then "nose dive" to a nearby quarry's property. One of the witnesses indicated that the back of the airplane hit a tree and that the airplane subsequently impacted the ground. The other witness said that the airplane engine was making a "buzzing" noise after the airplane crashed but that he did not hear anything before the crash.
The main airplane wreckage came to rest inverted near a tree line about 2,300 feet northwest of the runway's displaced threshold. Trees in the tree line exhibited broken and cut branches along about a 300-foot-long path, and the airplane was found fragmented and signs of a ground fire were observed along the path. The crankshaft propeller flange had separated from the crankshaft.
A family member who flew with the pilot during an earlier leg of the cross-country flight reported that the airplane's engine seemed harder to start than usual and that, during cruise, a distinct engine vibration occurred when the fuel mixture was leaned. However, examinations revealed no preimpact airframe or engine anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Further, during an engine test run conducted after engine items that had sustained impact damage were replaced and a centering pilot shaft and the propeller flange were welded to the engine's crankshaft separation point, the engine ran normally, and no preimpact engine anomalies were detected. On the basis of the evidence, it is likely that the pilot lost control of the airplane during the approach to landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of airplane control during the approach to landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA185
- Event ID
- 20140406X02952
- Case number
- CEN14FA185
- 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: e25332830503a237ffe43a174bf4f4004e2953efd2a74cb8b64565530bba3a0f; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:12:30.052Z.