GAA17CA236 · Zeiler BAKENG DUCE 1976 CZ
Zeiler BAKENG DUCE 1976 CZ · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Williamsburg Whitley County Airport (BYL) to Oliver Springs, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA236
- 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
Zeiler BAKENG DUCE 1976 CZ
- Aircraft type
- Zeiler BAKENG DUCE 1976 CZ
- 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
- N122BD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Williamsburg Whitley County Airport (BYL), Williamsburg, KYTo Oliver Springs, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1982)
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during approach, while flying from the rear seat of the tandem-seat, high-wing airplane, he "needed to lose speed and altitude." He placed the airplane in a right-wing-low, forward slip, and he added that the airplane had poor forward visibility at slower speeds. He aligned the airplane with the center of the runway and "pulled the nose up slightly to slow [down]," and a "wind gust" came from the right and "pushed" the airplane over the trees. He "saw [the] tree tops coming up fast under [his] left wing," and "out of shear instinct, [he] banked slightly right to avoid going in nose first." The airplane collided with the tree tops.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the empennage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation system about 3 nautical miles from the accident site, about the time of the accident, reported that the wind was variable at 3 knots. The pilot landed to the southwest.
Probable cause
The pilot’s unstabilized approach and failure to go around, which resulted in impact with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA236
- Event ID
- 20170415X15153
- Case number
- GAA17CA236
- 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: 57f97f4eceece96b22b431b3d00a094a3ec39b9445580ed68ca85e6cd9bf392a; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:10:18.334Z.