CEN25LA075 · Bellanca 7GCBC
Bellanca 7GCBC · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Batesville Regional Airport (KBVX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25LA075
- 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
- 1 · 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 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
- N8569V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Batesville Regional Airport (KBVX), Batesville, ARTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 51 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Wire
- 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 › Psychological
- 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 was conducting a local flight when the airplane struck and became entangled in a high-tension power line, leaving the airplane suspended nose-down about 130 ft above the ground. The pilot of a second airplane that was flying behind and higher than the accident airplane witnessed the collision, and his passenger called 911 to report it. After landing at a nearby airport, the second pilot and his passenger went to the accident site, where the accident pilot remained inside the suspended airplane awaiting rescue. He stated that he heard the accident pilot say that he did not see the power lines until it was too late due to the snowy background. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure that would have prevented normal operation. The sectional chart current at the time of the accident depicted the location of the power lines. The accident pilot sustained fatal injuries when attempting to egress the suspended airplane using harness and rope provided by persons on the ground. Toxicology results indicated that the accident pilot had used multiple sedating medications. Such medications have the potential to cause cognitive and psychomotor impairment, especially when combined. However, no detailed determination about impairment during the accident flight or subsequent rescue effort can be made from the reviewed toxicology results alone. Further, considering that the detected medications all may be used to treat insomnia, whether the pilot was experiencing the impairing effects of disordered sleep also is unknown.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from powerlines while flying at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25LA075
- Event ID
- 20250113199532
- Case number
- CEN25LA075
- 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: 34f6ce9cc1038a2a82c73717121dd5159382989d4f244fc1f2b9c1b5cf0e3141; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:01:30.348Z.