DEN91FA013 · Bellanca 8KCAB
Bellanca 8KCAB · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Mid Valley Airpark (E98) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN91FA013
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N5058J
- Operator
- Mark L. Bode · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mid Valley Airpark (E98), Los Lunas, NMTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO AVAILABLE INFO, THE PURPOSE OF THE FLT WAS TO PRACTICE AEROBATICS. DURING THE FLT, THE ACFT CRASHED ON RELATIVELY FLAT, DESERT TERRAIN, JUST TO THE EAST OF A LARGE GULLY. THE INITIAL IMPACT OCCURRED ON A HEADING OF 087 DEG. PIECES OF THE LANDING GEAR WERE FOUND IN THE INITIAL IMPACT DEPRESSION, WHICH WAS 6 INCHES DEEP. ABOUT 15 FT SOUTH OF THE INITIAL IMPACT POINT WAS A SCAR THAT CONTAINED THE RIGHT WINGTIP CAP. THE LEFT WINGTIP CAP WAS FOUND ABOUT 18 FT NORTHEAST OF THE INITIAL IMPACT POINT. THE MAIN WRECKAGE CAME TO REST 71 FT EAST OF THE INITIAL IMPACT POINT ON A SLIGHT RISE IN THE TERRAIN. ONE PROP BLADE WAS DISTORED WITH AN 'S' CURVE, THE OTHER BLADE WAS PARTIALLY MELTED. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT MISJUDGED THE AIRCRAFT'S ALTITUDE (GROUND CLEARANCE) ABOVE THE DESERT TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN91FA013
- Event ID
- 20001212X24449
- Case number
- DEN91FA013
- 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: 3b68e5eac465e4d6944df8c729a7bb05e72ca93be5c38758afeca0e824867aac; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:06:11.606Z.