CHI96FA034 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Stafford Municipal Airport (3TA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96FA034
- 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
- 2 · 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe (eng Research 415
- 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
- N93726
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stafford Municipal Airport (3TA)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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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, transmission
- 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
- Pilot in command › Distance/altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported that the electrical power to the Stafford area went out at 1802 CST. The airplane was reported to be burning in a field 1/2 mile south of the approach end of runway 35 at Stafford Airport. Two transmission wires were severed and lying near the airplane. A third wire was struck but had not broken. A two foot piece of transmission wire had been twisted into a curlicue shape and was found at the first impact site. The propeller had chordwise impact marks. The controls and engine exhibited continuity. The twin tail vertical stabilizers had 3/4 inch impact marks at the same location on their leading edges. The severed transmission wires were 35 feet in height. The last time the pilot had logged night time was 21 months earlier.
Probable cause
the pilot misjudged his distance and altitude and flew into transmission wires. A factor was the pilot's lack of recent night flying experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96FA034
- Event ID
- 20001207X04820
- Case number
- CHI96FA034
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-11-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 254b12498ade1c3f1c3a1e7fd530e680ffae0928f40d5c6f23f6fe24a580704d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:31:48.062Z.