ANC93LA111 · Champion 7ECA
Champion 7ECA · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From King Salmon Airport (AKN) to YUKON RIVER, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA111
- 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
- N9597S
- Operator
- Warner, Carl E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King Salmon Airport (AKN), KING SALMON, AKTo YUKON RIVER, AK
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT LANDED ON A GRAVEL BAR TO AWAIT BETTER WEATHER. THE GRAVEL BAR WAS 375 FEET LONG. THE PLANE NORMALLY REQUIRED A TAKEOFF DISTANCE OF 400 FEET. THE PILOT BELIEVED THAT THE TAKEOFF COULD BE MADE BASED UPON THE 5 TO 10 MILE PER HOUR HEADWIND, HAVING NO PASSENGERS, AND 3/4THS FUEL. AT THE END OF THE GRAVEL BAR THE PLANE'S INDICATED AIRSPEED WAS ABOUT 40 MILES PER HOUR. NORMAL LIFTOFF AIRSPEED WAS APPROXIMATELY 50 MILES PER HOUR. THE PLANE ROSE SEVERAL FEET THEN SETTLED INTO THE RIVER AND FLIPPED OVER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S ATTEMPT TO TAKEOFF WITH INSUFFICIENT AIRSPEED. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S SELECTION OF UNSUITABLE TERRAIN ON WHICH TO LAND AND TAKEOFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA111
- Event ID
- 20001211X12743
- Case number
- ANC93LA111
- 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: 74290520e31d912d068a736748e04c64d60b42258ce68043dbbb599cd4fb0fb4; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:54:32.472Z.