CEN21LA073 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Anoka County-Blaine (Janes Field) Airport (KANE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA073
- 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 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
- N28067
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anoka County-Blaine (Janes Field) Airport (KANE), Blaine, MNTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1979)
- 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 (total)
- 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 power plant
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 reported that he heard a loud “bang” and the engine began to vibrate and ultimately lost complete power. He executed a forced landing to a highway during which the airplane struck a car and a highway divider which resulted in substantial damage to both wings. Postaccident engine examination revealed that the Nos. 5 and 6 connecting rods had failed. Further examination revealed two undamaged rod nuts within the oil pan that had no remnant of a rod bolt within the threaded portion of the nut. Additionally, a rod bolt, although damaged, was complete from bolt head to threaded shank and did not have a nut on the threaded portion. Review of maintenance records revealed that the Nos. 1, 4, and 6 cylinders had been removed and replaced due to low compression about 8 years and 396 hours before the accident, but it is not known if the connecting rods were removed at this same time. The most recent engine overhaul was completed 16 years before the accident, and it had accumulated about 1,296 hours time-in-service since the overhaul. Based on the available evidence, the loss of engine power was likely due to improper connecting rod installation that resulted in the loss of connecting rod bolt torque, separation of the rod bolt nuts, and subsequent failure of the Nos. 5 and 6 connecting rods.
Probable cause
Incorrect connecting rod installation, which resulted in the failure of the nos. 5 and 6 connecting rods and subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA073
- Event ID
- 20201203102368
- Case number
- CEN21LA073
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9029533b8c807e75e259425074dc0a9c0815b0f564f7cc0df3d10155cb5b3c62; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:27:14.517Z.