ERA24LA299 · Bellanca 8GCBC
Ocean Aerial Ads Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Bunting's Field (4MD1) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA299
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 8GCBC
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 8
- 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
- N749SK
- Operator
- Ocean Aerial Ads
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bunting's Field (4MD1), Berlin, MDTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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
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 was flying at 300 ft mean sea level (msl) while towing a banner when he noticed the engine oil temperature began to increase. The pilot informed the operator and climbed to 1,200 ft msl; however, the airplane would not maintain altitude and was slowly descending. The engine rpm began to decrease and the engine increasingly began to run rough. The pilot dropped the banner as the airplane descended through 700 ft msl, and he initiated a forced landing in a field that was bordered by trees. Unable to reach the field, the airplane impacted the top of trees. The airplane then descended to the ground, resulting in substantial airframe and wing damage. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed damage to the No. 3 cylinder that was consistent with detonation in the form of erosion on the edge of the intake valve and valve seat insert, and a cracked lower spark plug that was likely the cause of the detonation. A review of the most recent annual inspection maintenance logs revealed that the No. 3 cylinder assembly was replaced with a new cylinder 45 days before the accident.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power resulting from cylinder detonation and a cracked spark plug, which resulted in a forced landing and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA299
- Event ID
- 20240709194658
- Case number
- ERA24LA299
- 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, coordinates, 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: f9e0dc87b6cc366d1bfc156df8f1893cd2a5d89c47b9f8e70c2a2871a75faad6; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:01:38.800Z.