ANC21LA046 · Bellanca 8GCBC
Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC21LA046
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 8GCBC
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 8
- 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
- N178TT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff the private pilot flew to several different airstrips where he performed several full-stop landings. He then elected to fly to the “Lynx Strip” and flew across the runway and did not notice any “significant [wind]” at low altitude or on the water of a nearby pond. He performed two passes over the runway from different directions and again noted the wind was “negligible.” He performed two landings to the north then a full stop landing to the south. He departed and performed a “left traffic teardrop” for a final landing to the north. Either at touchdown or just moments before he felt drag on the right wing and realized the right wingtip was, “in the small Black Spruce [trees] to the right of the runway.” He applied left rudder and some aileron input to correct back to center, but the drag on the right wing increased. The airplane made an arc to the right and contact black spruce trees off the right side of the runway coming to rest upright perpendicular to the runway facing east.
According to the airplane manufacturer, the total wingspan of the airplane was about 36 ft. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed damage to the leading edges of both wings which was greater than 10% of the total wingspan; therefore, the damage was considered substantial.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate clearance with trees during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC21LA046
- Event ID
- 20210617103283
- Case number
- ANC21LA046
- 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, 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: 74ae000ec7ba47dd8711a2b324c1aba4ebdba60b397a38e723cbe6351a3e7a25; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:10:57.708Z.