WPR14CA384 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Sleeping Giant Flying Club Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: nose over/nose down during landing
From Benchmark Airport (3U7) to Meadow Creek USFS Airport (0S1)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA384
- 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
- N714TM
- Operator
- Sleeping Giant Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Benchmark Airport (3U7), Benchmark, MTTo Meadow Creek USFS Airport (0S1), Meadow Creek, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1972)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Nose over/nose down
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Upon arrival in the vicinity of the unpaved airstrip, the pilot made a "mid-field fly over" to check the wind socks, which indicated calm winds. He then flew a low pass along the runway in order to ensure that it was suitable for landing. Satisfied with the wind and runway conditions, he flew a normal traffic pattern for landing. The tailwheel equipped airplane touched down in a 3-point attitude, but rebounded into the air. In accordance with previous experience, the pilot applied forward stick to "stop the bounce," and the airplane continued down the runway on the main gear. According to the pilot, the main wheels "hit a dip" which resulted in a nose down pitching that the pilot was unable to arrest. The airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. A postaccident examination of the runway revealed no obvious holes or impediments in the landing strip surface. It was noted that one wind sock on the airport was situated so close to significantly taller trees that it would not have provided valid wind speed or direction information. Review of meteorological information indicated that light winds prevailed for the region.
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate landing flare and failure to maintain aircraft control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA384
- Event ID
- 20140923X11332
- Case number
- WPR14CA384
- 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: b391aecd405237bac92cb589eb6bd65b4cbcb1da5ac82a512fd6df8089cb7909; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:47:22.990Z.