CEN21LA050 · Bellanca 1730 A
Bellanca 1730 A · Accident: fuel starvation while maneuvering
From Draughon Miller Central Texas Regional Airport (KTPL) to Midland International Air and Space Port (KMAF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA050
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 1730 A
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 1730
- 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
- N7333V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Draughon Miller Central Texas Regional Airport (KTPL), Temple, TXTo Midland International Air and Space Port (KMAF), Midland, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector that he was in cruise flight when he ran out of fuel in the right fuel tank and the airplane’s engine lost all power. He attempted to get the engine restarted but could not. The student pilot subsequently performed a forced landing to a highway about a half a mile east of his intended destination airport. During the forced landing, one wing sustained substantial damage to the spar. The student pilot reported to the inspector that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The student pilot did not provide an NTSB Form 6120.1 Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident Report.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s improper decision-making, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA050
- Event ID
- 20201110102264
- Case number
- CEN21LA050
- 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, 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: 4297734929ce88923025f00fec1cbde45e38e4f770835bc89dee3d43fa59b55b; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:21:58.230Z.