ERA18LA158 · Bellanca 7ECA
Bellanca 7ECA · Accident: abrupt maneuver during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA158
- 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
- 0
- 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 7ECA
- 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
- N8698
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1973)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a preflight inspection and engine run up revealed no anomalies, the pilot attempted to takeoff from an upsloping turf runway. The initial takeoff roll was normal; however, as the airplane reached 60 knots, the pilot determined that the airplane’s acceleration was not "normal" and that the airplane would not clear the trees at the end of the runway, nor be able to stop within the remaining runway. The pilot then rejected the takeoff, applied full rudder, and the airplane ground looped, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage.
A cursory examination of the engine did not reveal any preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation; however, the examination did not determine whether the engine was capable of developing its full rated power during the accident takeoff.
The runway measured 1,100 ft by 125 ft and had an approximate 3% slope. The calculated density altitude at the time of the accident was about 2,389 ft, and the wind reported at the nearest weather observation facility would have provided a headwind component of about 3 knots for the takeoff runway. According to the pilot’s operating handbook, at maximum gross weight, the airplane would have required about 938 ft to clear a 50-ft obstacle, given the wind conditions and a dry, level grass runway; however, the actual distance required would have been greater than the calculated 938 ft due to the upsloping runway.
It is likely that the reduced acceleration noticed by the pilot was the result of decreased engine performance due to the density altitude combined with the upsloping runway, both of which would have increased the runway distance required to reach takeoff speed. It is also likely that even with full engine power, given the conditions on the day of the accident, the runway distance required would have been close to or exceeded the runway length available. Although the pilot acted appropriately by aborting the takeoff upon realizing that the airplane would not clear the trees at the end of the runway, his delayed decision to abort resulted in insufficient runway remaining on which to slow and stop the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight performance planning, and his delayed decision to abort the takeoff, which resulted in a ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA158
- Event ID
- 20180603X31024
- Case number
- ERA18LA158
- 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, cause areas. 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: d0e59d32c8d6ed89d500e6eb6f45ce26a3919368434a2067bd625f14bc559a34; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:21:50.530Z.