CHI96LA064 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Devils Lake Regional Airport (DVL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA064
- 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 7GCBC
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- 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
- N88384
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Devils Lake Regional Airport (DVL), Devils Lake, NDTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 final
- First occurrenceThe 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 control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, low
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While making a precautionary landing the pilot applied carburetor heat during the downwind leg of his approach to a road. It was removed a short time later. While on final approach the pilot said the airplane began descending too rapidly. He said he applied power and the engine did not respond. The pilot said the airplane drifted to the right as it neared the road. He said he applied left aileron and it continued to drift to the right. The pilot said he could not recall if he had applied right rudder when he applied left aileron. The pilot said the ailerons didn't respond because the airplane was too slow. The airplane landed in snow next to the road and nosed over. The on-scene investigation found no mechanical anomalies that would prevent normal flight. According to pilot/operator handbook for the Bellanca 7GCBC, the pilot is directed to use carburetor heat only when 'atmospheric conditions indicate that icing is probable....' The temperature and dew point were 17 and 12 degress F. respectively. The FAA's carburetor icing chart shows carburetor icing was probable.
Probable cause
the pilot allowed his airspeed to get too low and encountered a stall/mush condition. Factors associated with the accident were the pilot not being able to maintain directional control due to misuse of the controls for wind drift correction and improper use of the carburetor heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA064
- Event ID
- 20001207X04985
- Case number
- CHI96LA064
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 263e6653306f41eedb6a80454ff4b9b2f07ebb739f9869d93ccb190aaeccec4e; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:55:48.647Z.