NYC87FA272 · Bellanca 8GCBC
Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From New Bedford Regional Airport (EWB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA272
- 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
- 1 · 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 8GCBC
- 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
- N5060K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Bedford Regional Airport (EWB), New Bedford, MATo 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
- Pilot in command › Descent, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Diverted attention
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS INVOLVED IN COMMERICAL FISHING OPERATIONS AS A SPOTTER AND TO DIRECT THE CLOSING OF NETS AROUND SCHOOLS OF TUNA. WHILE DIRECTING THE CLOSING OF A NET, THE FISH BEING NETTED REVERSED COURSE AND STARTED TO ESCAPE FROM THE OPEN NET. THE PLT DOVE AT A STEEP ANGLE TOWARD THE WATER IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL, APPARENTLY IN AN ATTEMPT TO TURN THE FISH BACK INTO THE NET. THE ACFT DESCENDED VERY LOW THEN PULLED UP ABRUPTLY. WITNESSES HEARD A LOUD CRACK AS THE ACFT BEGAN TO CLIMB, OBSERVED THE LEFT WING TO COLLAPSE REARWARD, AND THE ACFT TO SPIN INTO THE OCEAN. THE WITNESSES DID NOT SEE THE ACFT CONTACT THE WATER BEFORE HEARING THE CRACK AND OBSERVING THE DMGD WING. NEITHER THE WRECKAGE NOR THE PILOT'S BODY WERE RECOVERED. FISH SPOTTING IS NORMALLY CONDUCTED AT OR ABOVE 1000 FT AGL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA272
- Event ID
- 20001213X31902
- Case number
- NYC87FA272
- 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: 558fbda242eb929f194a611571e7df0efdad58b8d4a0dc1e726c02ef7d8d49f5; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:01:50.024Z.