NYC88FA167 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Bowman Field (B10) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88FA167
- 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 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
- N4129Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bowman Field (B10), LIVEMORE FALLS, METo 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Unknown › Inadequate quality control
- Wing, spar › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Livermore Falls, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE CITABRIA 7GCBC WAS OBSERVED TO MAKE A LOOP. THE LEFT WING BENT UPWARD AT THE STRUT ATTACH POINT AS THE AIRCRAFT WAS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LOOP AND RECOVERING TO LEVEL FLIGHT. THE AIRCRAFT WAS THEN OBSERVED TO DESCEND IN A RIGHT SPIRAL AND NOT RECOVER PRIOR TO CONTACT WITH THE GROUND. IMPROPER LEFT FWD WING SPAR MANUFACTURING WAS FOUND. NO PROBLEMS WERE NOTED ON THE LEFT REAR WING SPAR. THE FWD WING SPAR FAILED WITH TENSION ON THE TOP AND COMPRESSION ON THE BOTTOM. THE REAR WING SPAR HAD TENSION ON THE BOTTOM AND COMPRESSION ON THE TOP. THE LEFT WING OUTBOARD OF THE STRUT ATTACH POINT SEPARATED FROM THE AIRCRAFT PRIOR TO IMPACT. THE LEFT AILERON WAS BENT UPWARD 90 DEGREES AT THE MIDDLE HINGE POINT WHICH CORRESPONDS TO THE STRUT ATTACH POINT. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE SLOPE OF THE GRAIN ON THE FWD WING SPAR EXCEEDED SPECIFICATIONS. ALSO TWO AREAS OF POOR BONDING WERE FOUND. THE AIRCRAFT LOG BOOKS WERE NOT FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88FA167
- Event ID
- 20001213X26057
- Case number
- NYC88FA167
- 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: c01278ce4312d8d21b6179a19535f3f56377340c0dd0c497807e675bd6d3a948; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:41:10.917Z.