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MIA96LA093 · Bellanca 8GCBC

5 Mar 1996 · PANAMA CITY BCH, FL, United States

Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: hard landing

From Orlando Seaplane Base (FA07) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA96LA093
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
N86928
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Orlando Seaplane Base (FA07)To 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
Landing · flare/touchdown
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
Hard landing
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

  • Copilot/second pilot › Compensation for wind conditions, improper
  • Copilot/second pilot › Remedial action, inadequate
  • Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot-in-command (PIC), who occupied the rear seat, was training the front seat pilot regarding banner towing operations. When the flight returned from tow-training, the banner was dropped, and the pilots entered the traffic pattern to land. The front seat pilot was manipulating the controls on final approach with the flaps fully extended, when the flight encountered gusty wind conditions. After touchdown, the flight encountered a gust of wind, and the airplane became airborne again. The front seat pilot stated that he applied only partial power, and the airplane landed hard, causing the right main landing gear wheel/axle assembly to separate. The airplane then nosed over and came to rest inverted. Examination of the threads of all 4 of the axle attach nuts revealed that they were stripped.

Probable cause

improper compensation for wind conditions by the second pilot, his inadequate remedial action after the airplane lifted off during a wind gust, and inadequate supervision by the first pilot (PIC). A factor relating to the accident was: the gusty wind condition.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA96LA093
Event ID
20001208X05454
Case number
MIA96LA093
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: 6ec4e37a4db287cc80b635648cbfe5f78827d98360ec1ee29354c3e0099c1fe3; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:46:09.374Z.