DFW06LA209 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Aero Valley Airport (52F) to Terminal D Ranch Airport (TE58)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06LA209
- 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
- N50340
- Operator
- MarcAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aero Valley Airport (52F), Roanoke, TXTo Terminal D Ranch Airport (TE58), Air Cowboy, TX
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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 object
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Aborted landing › Delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › 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 1,800-hour flight instructor and the 4,500-hour airline transport pilot (ATP), who was an FAA inspector, were practicing takeoffs and landings in a tail-wheel equipped single-engine airplane, when the airplane's left and right wing struts collided with a T-bar and wood fence post during an aborted landing. The ATP rented the airplane for the purpose of recurrency training under the provisions of the FAA's 4040.9D Flight Management Program. Prior to the flight, the inspector noted that the left brake pedal had excessive travel, but the instructor stated that there had not been any problems reported with the brakes. The inspector and instructor then flew to a private airport to practice takeoffs and landings on a 3,501-foot-long and 250-foot-wide turf runway. The inspector had never flown into this airport before. While on the first approach to landing, the inspector noted large birds on the runway so he executed a go-around and the birds dispersed. On the next approach to landing, he noted that the birds had returned to the runway. The flight instructor suggested that the inspector land beyond where the birds were located, which was about half-way down the runway. The inspector said he maintained an approach speed of 85 miles per hour (mph), which he later admitted was about 30 mph too fast. When the airplane touched down on the runway, he realized that it sloped downhill and he would not have enough runway length to stop. Plus, the left brake was not working properly, so he aborted the landing. The inspector added full power and began to climb; however, the right wing strut collided with a metal T-bar and a wooded fence post, which were obstructed by bushes. The pilot was able to maintain directional control of the airplane, but elected to return to the private airport and land. Examination of the airplane revealed the left and right wing struts were both damaged; however, the wood spar in the right wing was split about 2 to 3-inches. The ATP later reported that the airplane would have needed at least 2,000 feet of runway length to safely stop the airplane.
Probable cause
The CFI's and ATP's inflight decision to land halfway down the runway and the ATP's delayed decision to abort the landing. A factor was the ATP's excessive airspeed on final.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06LA209
- Event ID
- 20060928X01413
- Case number
- DFW06LA209
- 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: f0641f076dd3fb1c52dec439c3670f4c1ba1efba314321f38ed39b2f7cb51edb; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:27:54.145Z.