ERA14CA239 · Taylorcraft BC 65
Taylorcraft BC 65 · Accident while maneuvering
From Wyatt Airport (GA23) to Wyatt Airport (GA23)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA239
- 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
Taylorcraft BC 65
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC-65
- 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
- N29611
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wyatt Airport (GA23), Summerville, GATo Wyatt Airport (GA23), Summerville, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 74 years (built 1940)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a local flight to take pictures of the passenger's house, while making a pass by the house the airplane entered a left turn. The passenger stated that he heard the pilot say "oh no," moments later the airplane impacted the tops of the trees. A witness on the ground stated she heard the airplane fly over and went outside to see it. At that time she heard the top of the trees "pop" and saw the aircraft hit the ground. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. A subsequent examination by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector did not reveal any evidence of any preimpact failure of malfunction of the airplane, flight control system, or engine. Review of photographic evidence also revealed both wings evenly bent aft indicating the aircraft struck the trees in a level attitude in forward flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an inadequate altitude during low level maneuvering, which resulted in an in-flight collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA239
- Event ID
- 20140513X20717
- Case number
- ERA14CA239
- 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. 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: 0777fb8260073fe067cf5600031ca3ee673d52b5460380b7b59e303777353068; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:37:04.331Z.