FTW95LA344 · Champion 7ECA
Mcmahan Aviation Champion 7ECA · Accident: hard landing
From Monroe Regional Airport (MLU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA344
- 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
Champion 7ECA
- Aircraft type
- Champion 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
- N5147T
- Operator
- Mcmahan Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monroe Regional Airport (MLU)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Dual student › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE FIRST LANDING, THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR INTENTIONALLY 'BALLOONED' THE AIRPLANE WITH THE INTENTION THAT THE RECOVERY FROM THE MANEUVER WOULD BE MADE BY THE STUDENT. THE STUDENT TOOK THE CONTROLS, ADDED POWER AND 'RETURNED TO A STALL LANDING.' THE AIRPLANE 'STALLED' APPROXIMATELY 12 TO 18 INCHES ABOVE THE GROUND, THE RIGHT WING 'DROPPED,' AND THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR CONTACTED THE GROUND. THE OWNER AND OPERATOR REPORTED THAT THE COMMERCIAL PILOT WAS ENROLLED AS A STUDENT IN THE TAILWHEEL TRAINING COURSE. THE HARD LANDING RESULTED IN STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR SUPPORT TUBE, AND LONGERONS AND STRINGERS IN THE FUSELAGE AREA WERE TWISTED.
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S IMPROPER FLARE AND THE INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA344
- Event ID
- 20001207X04245
- Case number
- FTW95LA344
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: c5aa86ea1829826c036b9f0d2de0df51589a5c7f74533b6bf07c7279d1fc4ee9; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:28:17.112Z.