ANC12TA008 · Bellanca 8GCBC
Alaska Department of Fish and Game Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Chena River Seaplane Base (2Z5) to Delta Junction, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC12TA008
- 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
- Government
- 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
- N88417
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chena River Seaplane Base (2Z5), Fairbanks, AKTo Delta Junction, AK
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- Defining eventThe 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
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 of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that she had taxied for an extended period in loose snow at the departure airport. The subsequent flight and accident landing were in sub-freezing temperatures. On touchdown at the destination airstrip, the tires immediately dug into the shallow snow layer, and the airplane nosed down and skidded for several yards before nosing over. The pilot stated that she thought the brakes had frozen and locked the tires prior to landing, probably precipitated by taxiing in the loose snow at the departure airport. Postaccident examination found one brake still locked by ice and one free. No mechanical deficiencies other than the frozen brake were found.
Probable cause
Ice accretion in the main landing gear wheel brakes, which prevented the main landing gear wheels from rotating on landing, which resulted in the airplane nosing over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC12TA008
- Event ID
- 20111116X70252
- Case number
- ANC12TA008
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 6d4684478c7e1315ba3b6f421085de48d56423771c6555b99e2f50016db9238b; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:56:32.107Z.