ANC92LA183 · Champion 7GCBC
Champion 7GCBC · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during takeoff
From BLAIR LAKE, AK to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC92LA183
- 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 7GCBC
- 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
- N1654G
- Operator
- Theodore A. Wicken · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BLAIR LAKE, AKTo Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD ARRIVED AT THE REMOTE STRIP 11 DAYS EARLIER HAVING 40 HOURS TOTAL EXPERIENCE IN MAKE AND MODEL AND 6 HOURS IN PAST 90 DAYS. THE SNOW WITH A DEPTH OF 2 FEET HAD BEEN PLOWED 10 FEET WIDE ON HALF THE RUNWAY AT THE DEPARTURE END. DURING THE SKI TAKEOFF THE AIRPLANE BECAME PREMATURELY AIRBORNE ON THE PLOWED BERM AND NOSED OVER WHEN ITS RIGHT SKI DUG INTO THE SNOW PILE SHOULDER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S PREFLIGHT PLANNING/PREPARATION IN ACCESSING THE AVAILABLE RUNWAY LENGTH AND SNOW CONDITIONS. FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE SNOW BANK AND THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH SKIPLANE OPERATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC92LA183
- Event ID
- 20001211X15581
- Case number
- ANC92LA183
- 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 1992-09-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: eeaaa5c1b4e3e9b3beaa5f034b6ea7ee1517fe2bba50b1afa76292fe7383e79a; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:07:09.631Z.