NYC87FA124 · Bellanca 8KCAB
Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Bellanca 8KCAB · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From New Milford, CT to Westchester County Airport (HPN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA124
- 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
- N377SW
- Operator
- Joseph E. Seagram & Sons
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Milford, CTTo Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, NY
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Milford, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TAKING OFF ON RUNWAY 16 AT THE CANDLELIGHT FARMS AIRPORT, THE FLIGHT REMAINED LOW OVER THE RUNWAY WHILE GAINING AIRSPEED. AS THE AIRCRAFT APPROACHED THE UPWIND END OF THE RUNWAY, WITNESSES OBSERVED IT ENTER A STEEP CLIMB THAT CONTINUED TO AN ESTIMATED HEIGHT OF 700 FEET ABOVE THE TERRAIN. AT THE TOP OF THE CLIMB, THE NOSE DROPPED AND THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED A DIVING SPIRAL THAT CONTINUED UNTIL IT IMPACTED THE TERRAIN ON THE AIRPORT NEAR THE UPWIND END OF THE RUNWAY. EXAM OF THE ACFT AND ENG DID NOT REVEAL ANY EVIDENCE OF FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION PRIOR TO THE ACFT COLLIDING WITH THE GROUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA124
- Event ID
- 20001213X30800
- Case number
- NYC87FA124
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 18a2a4f313a915eb3e51ec53190d78ddb1587dbe3ef17d2283dda5417cc02f4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:10:24.978Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states the crash followed "TAKING OFF ON RUNWAY 16 AT THE CANDLELIGHT FARMS AIRPORT" (11N, New Milford, CT), with impact on the airport; the departure was not recorded.