LAX84FA429 · Bellanca 7ECA
Bellanca 7ECA · Accident: uncontrolled altitude deviation en route
From Borrego Valley Airport (L08) to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA429
- 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 7ECA
- 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
- N5516K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Borrego Valley Airport (L08), Borrego Springs, CATo Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CA
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Uncontrolled altitude deviation
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TAKEOFF SEVERAL 360 DEG CLIMBING TURNS WERE MADE TO GAIN ALT TO CLEAR THE MOUNTAIN RIDGE. THE RIDGE WAS APPROACHED AT 4800 FT MSL WITH THE PLT EXPECTING A THERMAL LIFT OVER THE 5500 FT LEVEL WHICH HAD BEEN ENCOUNTERED MANY TIMES BEFORE. AT 4800 FT MSL THE SECOND PLT STATED 'WE AREN'T GOING TO MAKE IT.' THE NOSE OF THE ACFT PITCHED DOWN AND BEFORE REMEDIAL ACTION COULD BE TAKEN, THE ACFT ENTERED A 2000 FPM VERTICLE DESCENT CONTACTING THE 4100 FT MSL TERRAIN AT 53 MPH. THE OAT ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT WAS 108 DEGS F.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA429
- Event ID
- 20001214X40741
- Case number
- LAX84FA429
- 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: b267b05ce2e651c714c94fea1ddffbc0759b402ffa034201c42a5e23e21a5cb0; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:24:28.591Z.