CEN17LA250 · North American T-28A
North American T-28A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Hector International Airport (KFAR) to Pelican Rapids Muni-Lyon's Field (47Y)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA250
- 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
North American T-28A
- Aircraft type
- North American T-28
- 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
- N9103F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector International Airport (KFAR), Fargo, NDTo Pelican Rapids Muni-Lyon's Field (47Y), Pelican Rapids, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1951)
- 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 final
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot took off in the airplane for a cross-country personal flight. Shortly after reaching 1,800 ft mean sea level (msl), the pilot contacted the departure controller and said he was diverting to another nearby airport. He did not provide a reason for the diversion nor did he declare an emergency, and when asked if he needed assistance, he replied "no." Subsequently, the controller told the pilot that a frequency change was approved and that radar services were terminated; however, no further communications were received from the pilot.
Radar data showed the airplane in a controlled descent on a southerly heading toward the diversion airport. The descent distance from 1,800 ft msl to the point of impact was 7.5 miles, for an average descent rate of 120 ft per mile. One witness reported that he saw the airplane fly over him and that it was "obviously in distress" and making a "terrible racket." One witness said the engine was "popping," and another witness reported that the airplane "sounded like it was in trouble." One witness reported seeing the airplane's right wing clip a light pole. The airplane then impacted a cornfield 1/2 mile from the airport.
Examination and disassembly of the engine revealed damage to the propeller case and gear case that was consistent with the engine running at impact, which corroborated the witnesses' reports, and no evidence of malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Oil specimens were within normal ranges. The reason for the abnormal engine sounds reported by the witnesses could not be determined.
Probable cause
Controlled descent into terrain due to engine issues, the reason for which could not be determined because examination of the engine revealed no evidence of malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA250
- Event ID
- 20170703X90833
- Case number
- CEN17LA250
- 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: 446b0d76e2f5720f4d0b378c5f1a70eff3d329f525f4136789898b30243e8ce6; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:05:19.206Z.