GAA17CA357 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: hard landing
From Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1) to Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA357
- 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
- N88237
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1), Edgewood, NMTo Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1), Edgewood, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1974)
- 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 · 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
- Hard landing
- 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, about 8 seconds into the takeoff roll in gusting wind conditions at high-density altitude, the airplane "suddenly and expectantly lifted off the runway in a steep angle of attack." He added that he immediately reduced power to idle to abort the initial climb, and the airplane "settled back onto the runway but landed hard." He further added that, during the landing roll, he lost directional control, and the airplane veered off the runway, coming to rest in the dirt alongside the runway.
The fuselage, left wing, and aileron sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
An automated weather observation station, 10 nautical miles southeast of the accident airport, reported that, 5 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 150° at 16 knots, gusting to 25 knots. The pilot reported that he observed the wind from 300° at 8 knots, gusting to 15 knots. He reported that the takeoff was on runway 9. He further reported that the density altitude was 10,000 ft at the departure airport.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to take off with a gusting tailwind, which resulted in a loss of pitch control during the initial climb and a subsequent hard landing and loss of directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA357
- Event ID
- 20170620X14827
- Case number
- GAA17CA357
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-06-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e24ade280fe221af792150d46eb941560241f6b73567e37588479dad231cdc6c; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:25:56.298Z.