BFO92FA141 · Champion 7KCAB
Champion 7KCAB · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Goodspeed Airport (42B) to Goodspeed Airport (42B)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92FA141
- 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
- 1 · 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 7KCAB
- 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
- N561EK
- Operator
- John S. Hendry · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goodspeed Airport (42B)To Goodspeed Airport (42B)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of East Haddam, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED WHILE THE PILOT WAS PERFORMING A LOW ALTITUDE PASS, ABOUT 100 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, OVER THE RUNWAY. THE FLIGHT WAS BEING VIDEOTAPED BY A FRIEND OF THE PILOT. REVIEW OF THE VIDEOTAPE SHOWED THAT THE PILOT ATTEMPTED A 360 DEGREE ROLL ON THE ACCIDENT PASS. THE NOSE OF THE AIRPLANE REMAINED HIGH THROUGH THE FIRST 180 DEGREES OF THE ROLL, HOWEVER, ONCE INVERTED, THE NOSE DROPPED AND THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE RUNWAY IN A 53 DEGREE NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE AFTER COMPLETING 330 DEGREES OF THE ROLL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO ATTEMPT AN AEROBATIC MANEUVER WITHOUT ADEQUATE ALTITUDE FOR RECOVERY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92FA141
- Event ID
- 20001211X15605
- Case number
- BFO92FA141
- 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: 19df3418f2dd668cd56c9e07455e665fad32f2bc5dac0cbe041eb16b29c08b2b; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:56:55.349Z.