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ANC05FA144 · Bellanca 7GCBC

12 Sept 2005 · Nenana, AK, United States

Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering

From Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
ANC05FA144
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
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
N36237
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Bradley Sky-Ranch Airport (95Z), North Pole, AKTo 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
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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The private pilot was conducting a personal local flight under Title 14, CFR Part 91. A witness said he saw the accident airplane flying level above the trees, when it abruptly started a steep, near vertical, climb. At the top of the climb, the witness said the airplane descended in a steep spiral and impacted the ground. The airplane impacted in a near vertical, nose low attitude. The right wing was found standing on its leading edge, with its top wrapped counter-clockwise around a small group of willows. Both blades of the two-bladed propeller had extreme bending and torsional twisting, chord-wise scratching, and areas sanded clean of paint. The engine exhaust manifold had plastic folding. The accident pilot/owner was a certified aircraft mechanic, who reportedly maintained the accident airplane. No airframe or engine logbooks were discovered for examination. No preimpact mechanical problems were discovered during the investigation. Federal Aviation Regulation Part 91.303, defines any abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration not necessary for normal flight, as aerobatic flight.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain minimum airspeed to avoid a stall while maneuvering, which resulted in a loss of control, a stall/spin, and impact with terrain. Factors associated with the accident were an aerobatic maneuver, and a stall/spin.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC05FA144
Event ID
20050921X01499
Case number
ANC05FA144
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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-09-13.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 7de527b93f8aec4a0f45ea7c00f5112bb58490417c547cc77d1f518555afab46; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:53:32.030Z.