DEN91LA027 · Aeronca 11BC
Durango Flying Vikings Aeronca 11BC · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN91LA027
- 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
Aeronca 11BC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 11
- 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
- N9713E
- Operator
- Durango Flying Vikings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Durango, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REJECTED ONE LANDING ATTEMPT BECAUSE THE APPROACH WAS TOO HIGH AND TOUCHDOWN ON THE 5000-FEET RUNWAY WAS MADE AT ABOUT THE 3000-FEET POINT. THE PILOT NOTED A 6-KNOT CROSSWIND AND SOME TURBULENCE. ON HIS SECOND LANDING ATTEMPT, THE AIRPLANE BOUNCED ONCE, SETTLED TO THE RUNWAY, THEN BEGAN DRIFTING TO THE LEFT. THE PILOT CORRECTED WITH RIGHT RUDDER, AND THE AIRPLANE BEGAN DRIFTING TO THE RIGHT. AIRPLANE STRUCK A SNOW BANK ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT SAID HE HAD LANDED AT THIS AIRPORT BEFORE, BUT THIS WAS HIS FIRST ATTEMPT IN THE AERONCA 11BC. HE SAID HE HAD LMITED EXPERIENCE IN AIRPLANES EQUIPPED WITH A CONVENTIONAL LANDING GEAR, AND EVEN LESS EXPERIENCE IN THE AERONCA 11BC (27.6 HOURS).
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN AIRPLANE TYPE AND CROSSWIND CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN91LA027
- Event ID
- 20001212X16440
- Case number
- DEN91LA027
- 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: e18620c0baf7bc4622f1a227872885b74d432c05e7ffa6129c2c583c57e265e0; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:49:00.668Z.