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Atlas / NTSB / CEN24LA152

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN24LA152

2024-04-05 Galveston, Texas, United States Airport · GLS None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N9996V

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BELLANCA 17-30A

Year of manufacture

1971 · 53 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR IO 520 SERIES (285 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19710123

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S ADF750

Registrant of record

MOORE MACE L

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

Maintenance personnel’s failure to properly secure the oil filter adapter when replacing the oil filter adapter gasket which resulted in the filter becoming loose, resulting in the loss of engine oil, and the subsequent total loss of engine power.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that while in cruise flight he briefly had smoke in the cockpit. The smoke dissipated and after being cleared to land, the engine quit suddenly, and the propeller stopped rotating. He alerted the tower and immediately retracted the landing gear and flaps and established best glide airspeed. When landing was assured, he lowered the landing gear, but the right main landing gear did not extend. The right wing struck a runway light and was substantially damaged.    Post-accident examination by the mechanic who worked on the airplane a few days prior to the accident revealed that the safety wire he cut while performing a gasket replacement on the oil filter adapter had not been removed and replaced. It is likely that because the cut safety wire was not replaced and secured when the filter adapter gasket was replaced, the filter became loose during engine operation which allowed for engine oil to leak out resulting in the subsequent loss of engine power due to oil starvation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft power plant-Eng oil sys (airframe furnish)-(general)-Related maintenance info
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Maintenance-Installation-Maintenance personnel

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2024_CEN24LA152.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗