ANC99LA149 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Metro Field (MTF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA149
- 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
- N53728
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Metro Field (MTF), AK
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private certificated pilot was departing a small ridge line at 2,700 feet msl. The dimensions of the ridge consisted of a useable area about 475 feet long, and 40 feet wide. In preparation for takeoff, he pushed the tail of the airplane to the rear edge of the area. The wind condition was light and variable. He began the takeoff run toward the north, which was slightly downhill. The airplane lifted off the ground, but then began to descend. He said the airplane would not climb, and settled toward numerous small spruce trees. The airplane collided with the trees, and nosed over. It received damage to the right main landing gear, the right wing lift struts, and the left wing spar. The pilot said the airplane may have encountered a tailwind gust, or swirling wind at the departure end of the ridge.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions. Factors in the accident were a windshear, and a short runway area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA149
- Event ID
- 20001212X19675
- Case number
- ANC99LA149
- 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: ff7d29ec4473359331bb77e41100fccc4d626ec61457698132b5bee75bd9085e; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:23:28.350Z.