CEN24LA077 · Bellanca 17-30A
Piasa Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From Washington Regional Airport (FYG) to Washington Regional Airport (FYG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA077
- 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
- N678MJ
- Operator
- Piasa
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Regional Airport (FYG), Washington, MOTo Washington Regional Airport (FYG), Washington, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 44 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the engine start, run-up, and takeoff were without incident. However, shortly after takeoff, the engine completely lost power. In his efforts to avoid trees in the glide path, the airplane inadvertently entered an aerodynamic stall and spin. He was able to recover from the spin but unable to arrest the descent before impacting an open field. The airplane came to rest upright with damage to the fuselage, left wing, and empennage. The pilot reported that about three weeks before the accident a similar loss of engine power event occurred after takeoff. In that instance, he was able to land in the level grass area short of the runway without any damage to the airplane. A mechanic examined the airplane and noted that the diffuser was missing from the muffler. A postrecovery examination did not reveal any anomalies with the engine assembly. However, testing and disassembly of the fuel pump identified a piece of debris within the vapor ejector cavity. Further analysis determined that the material was a rubber fragment from a fuel line. The examination did not observe any indication that diffusers were installed in either the left or right mufflers. The fuel line fragment present in the pump likely traveled into a position in which it blocked the vapor return. This blockage then routed any fuel vapor into the fuel inlet line to the engine and resulted in an interruption of fuel flow due to vapor lock. The airplane maintenance records did not reveal a record of any recent work on the fuel pump or fuel lines. The investigation was unable to determine how the rubber fuel line fragment was introduced into the fuel system.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power due to an obstructed fuel vapor return path. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s inadvertent aerodynamic stall/spin, which likely increased the severity of the ground impact.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA077
- Event ID
- 20240102193585
- Case number
- CEN24LA077
- 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: 702978d79b04eded2c6a4dc8342d54e2ccd665b544d668d0b8a77a41d46513e1; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:24:06.224Z.