CEN15FA264 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Semper Fi Aviation Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Kadoka Municipal Airport (5V8) to Kadoka Municipal Airport (5V8)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA264
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N11698
- Operator
- Semper Fi Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kadoka Municipal Airport (5V8), Kadoka, SDTo Kadoka Municipal Airport (5V8), Kadoka, SD
- Aircraft age
- About 43 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
The commercial pilot was departing for an aerial application flight. A witness, who observed the airplane climbing out after takeoff, reported that the airplane was about the same height as nearby light poles and was slipping "slightly to the right," when the right wing dropped "sharply." The airplane descended and impacted the ground, and a postimpact fire ensued. A postaccident examination of the wreckage did not reveal any anomalies consistent with preimpact failure or malfunction.
Phentermine, a stimulant in the amphetamine class of drugs, was noted in the pilot's toxicology report. The level of the medication detected was below the therapeutic range, and stimulants typically speed up psychomotor functioning; therefore, it is unlikely that any effects of phentermine contributed to the pilot's loss of control on takeoff.
It is likely that the pilot failed to maintain sufficient airspeed during the initial climb after takeoff, resulting in the airplane's wing exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and a subsequent aerodynamic stall with insufficient altitude to recover before impacting the ground. The slipping noted by the witness is consistent with uncoordinated flight, which increases the likelihood of a wing dropping when a stall occurs.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient airspeed during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in the airplane’s wing exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and a subsequent aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA264
- Event ID
- 20150608X23637
- Case number
- CEN15FA264
- 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: e46b6fed5f6d1fb7f321de469d17f82d7a70a52b4a390a1c396c5ba0d6dc3f1e; retrieved 2026-09-14T19:29:47.632Z.