GAA19CA228 · Bellanca 7GCAA
Mach 5 Aviation Bellanca 7GCAA · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Auburn Municipal Airport (KAUN) to Lincoln Regional Karl Harder Field (LHM)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA228
- 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 7GCAA
- 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
- N5046E
- Operator
- Mach 5 Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Municipal Airport (KAUN), Auburn, CATo Lincoln Regional Karl Harder Field (LHM), Lincoln, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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 pilot, who was receiving tailwheel instruction, reported that, following a three-point landing, he raised the tail to initiate a go-around, but the wind shifted from a left quartering headwind to a left quartering tailwind. The airplane veered left. and the pilot added right rudder and aileron to correct. The airplane continued to veer left and then exited the runway onto tall grass and rough terrain. The instructor took the flight controls and aborted the go-around, and the left wing and elevator impacted the far side of a trench.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and elevator.
The instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The airport's automated weather observation station reported that, about 5 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 240° at 3 knots and that, about 35 minutes after the accident, the wind was calm. The pilot landed the airplane on runway 15.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction's failure to maintain directional control during landing, which resulted in an attempted go-around and collision with a trench, and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action during the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA228
- Event ID
- 20190428X52843
- Case number
- GAA19CA228
- 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: 1c8f7510ed3cc434e0f33454dce66f60a98436527a8245011bf51beee37872b4; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:49:55.672Z.