SEA02LA165 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Melstone, MT to Roundup Airport (RPX)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA165
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- N36596
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Melstone, MTTo Roundup Airport (RPX), Roundup, MT
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who was attempting a takeoff in a 750 foot area in an open field, realized during the takeoff roll that the aircraft might not clear a known three foot ditch berm at the departure end of the takeoff area. Although he became unsure whether the aircraft would clear the obstacle, he continued the attempted takeoff, and both of the aircraft's main landing gear were torn from their mounts when they eventually collided with the berm. The density altitude was approximately 4740 feet, and the pilot, who had not performed any pre-takeoff performance calculations, had based his assumption that the aircraft could get off in the available distance upon the fact that a Piper Super Cub had successfully taken off from the field in the past.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to continue a takeoff once it had become apparent that it was questionable whether the aircraft would clear an obstacle at the departure end of the takeoff area. Factors include the pilot's failure to perform pre-takeoff performance calculations, a high density altitude, and a ditch berm at the end of the area the pilot was using for the attempted takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA165
- Event ID
- 20020904X01521
- Case number
- SEA02LA165
- 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, coordinates. 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: 5e2902985f9bd2b43032c9cb483736d4a84c8f97334ee0bc3c0fa89a4d6bdc74; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:25:31.885Z.