ANC05LA035 · Bellanca 8GCBC
Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Koyukuk, AK to Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (PAGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC05LA035
- 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 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
- N86911
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Koyukuk, AKTo Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (PAGA), Galena
- 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
- In flight 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After taxiing to the north end of a remote, snow-covered lake that was 3,000 feet long, the private certificated pilot took off in a ski-equipped airplane. The pilot said the snow was about 5 feet deep, and the temperature was about 40 degrees F, making the snow conditions sticky. He indicated that his departure was toward the south, and the wind was from the south, about 10 knots. He applied full engine power and began the takeoff run, which was initially slow until the skis of the airplane dropped into previously compacted ski tracks. The airplane lifted off from the snow near the south end of the lake, and climbed to about 5 feet above the snow. The pilot said he began a gentle left turn in an attempt to avoid spruce trees at the south end of the lake, but the left wingtip of the airplane brushed the snow, pulling the airplane slightly left and slowing the climb. The pilot said he knew the airplane would not clear the trees, and he landed the airplane in deep snow. The airplane rapidly decelerated and nosed down. It received structural damage to the right wing and right main landing gear.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff, which resulted in an in flight collision with the snow during takeoff initial climb. A factor contributing to the accident was soft snow conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC05LA035
- Event ID
- 20050217X00206
- Case number
- ANC05LA035
- 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: 9a0c166201d805f1f602e152bd26f4e118f1d0dc5826d1d5c9c72aa87eeb8341; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:04:20.345Z.