NYC95LA208 · Aeronca 7AC
Andover Flight Academy Aeronca 7AC · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From 12N to 13N · NJ
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95LA208
- 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
Aeronca 7AC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 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
- N84935
- Operator
- Andover Flight Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 12NTo 13N · NJ
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Andover, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFIED FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WAS GIVING A TAILWHEEL AIRPLANE CHECKOUT TO A PRIVATE PILOT WHEN THE ENGINE LOST POWER SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 400 FEET. THE CFI TOOK CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AND HE FORCED LANDED ATOP OF TREES SHORT OF AN OPEN FIELD HE TRIED TO REACH. THE FAA EXAMINED THE AIRPLANE AND DRAINED LESS THAN 2 QUARTS OF FUEL FROM THE FUEL SYSTEM. THE CFI STATED THAT DURING THE PREFLIGHT THE FUEL GAGE INDICATED ONE-QUARTER FULL TANK. HE ALSO REPORTED THAT HE VISUALLY CHECKED THE FUEL AND DETERMINED THAT THE FUEL LEVEL OF THE 8-INCH DEEP FUEL TANK WAS 2 INCHES.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate preflight which failed to detect an inadequate fuel supply which subsequently resulted in fuel exhaustion and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95LA208
- Event ID
- 20001207X04365
- Case number
- NYC95LA208
- 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: bacae05e1358920637de66a2b881afd0e8e55db4550a619dcf58371aa448b5fb; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:06:21.713Z.