LAX91LA293 · Bellanca 8KCAB
Bellanca 8KCAB · Accident: fire during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Polacca Airport (P10)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA293
- 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 8KCAB
- 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
- N29BB
- Operator
- Steven W. Nimcheski · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Polacca Airport (P10), Chandler, AZ
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fire
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Electrical system, battery › Shorted
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Shoshone, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF THE PILOT SMELLED SMOKE EMANATING FROM THE REAR OF THE AIRCRAFT NEAR THE BATTERY STORAGE AREA. MOMENTS LATER FIRE ERUPTED IN THE LOWER LEFT COCKPIT AREA. BLACK SMOKE FROM THE OIL LINES BEGAN TO FILL THE COCKPIT AND THE FIRE BECAME MORE INTENSE CAUSING SERIOUS BURN INJURIES TO THE PILOT. THE PILOT WAS ABLE TO RETURN TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT BUT THE BURNING FIRE PREVENTED HIM FROM MAINTAINING DIRECTIONAL CONTROL. THE BATTERY CABLE SHORTED AND BURNT THROUGH THE OIL AND FUEL PUMP LINES.
Probable cause
AN ELECTRICAL SHORT OF THE BATTERY CABLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA293
- Event ID
- 20001212X17585
- Case number
- LAX91LA293
- 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: 4d0979f0fd5db929e7d54f8251da48a1c6b1f7e497b2eea8ed6652ebb4467533; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:24:20.697Z.