WPR25FA279 · Bellanca 17-30A
Bellanca 17-30A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Edgewood, NM to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25FA279
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
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
- N432DM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Edgewood, NMTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1971)
- 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 downwind
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On September 16, 2025, about 1132 mountain daylight time, a Bellanca 17-30A, N432DM, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Moriarty, New Mexico. The pilot receiving instruction was fatally injured and the flight instructor received serious injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. The pilot had purchased the airplane about two months before the accident and was flying with a flight instructor to familiarize himself with the airplane. ADS-B data showed the airplane departed Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1), Edgewood, New Mexico, about 1035. The airplane flew several traffic patterns at 1N1 before departing the traffic pattern, flying about 20 miles north of 1N1, and turning south towards Moriarty Municipal Airport (0E0), Moriarty, New Mexico. The airplane flew one visual approach to runway 26 at 0E0. Following the approach the airplane continued on runway heading for about 2 miles before it started a left descending turn. The data showed that the airplane performed a 180° left turn and descended to about 50-100 ft above ground level (agl). The airplane remained at an altitude between 50 and 100 ft agl on an easterly heading for about 1 mile before it impacted a powerline and terrain. A postaccident examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane came to rest on the west edge of an open field, about 300 ft from the impact point with the powerlines, which were about 40 ft in height. All flight control surfaces were identified at the accident site and flight control continuity was verified from the cockpit to all flight control surfaces. The left wing exhibited leading edge damage and buckling. The wreckage was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25FA279
- Event ID
- 20250916201016
- Case number
- WPR25FA279
- 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. 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: f3eff5c6e65129ece820030f84062e5401426a02b79632bcb8fdafb84bf07e86; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:08:59.662Z.