FTW00LA247 · Aeronca BL7-AC
Aeronca BL7-AC · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From M03 · Conway, AR to Memorial Field Airport (HOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA247
- 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 BL7-AC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca BL7
- 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
- N83866
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M03 · Conway, ARTo Memorial Field Airport (HOT)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 20 minutes into the cross-country flight, the pilot observed several lightning strikes ahead of his flight path. He turned 180 degrees to return to his departure point, and after about 5 minutes, he observed a storm developing in his flight path. He then decided to fly south toward the closest airport. Upon reaching the airport, he determined the winds to be light and variable out of the west. On final approach, just before touchdown on runway 23, 'wind started to buffet the aircraft.' Full aileron deflection was used to keep the right wing down after touchdown. The airplane then drifted off the runway and into the grass. As this was occurring, the pilot started to apply 'a little power' to gain more rudder control when 'a large gust of wind hit the aircraft causing the right wing to [go] completely over, striking the surface.' Subsequently, the airplane nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing spar, both wing struts, and the rudder. The wind, 16 minutes after the accident, was from 260 degrees at 16 knots with gusts to 26 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control during landing. A factor was the wind gusts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA247
- Event ID
- 20001212X21968
- Case number
- FTW00LA247
- 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: 026d89d1e52fc5e4006ee611bba08e7f534d9ee7adfba2888f4035a61996f99f; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:05:46.887Z.