SEA92LA210 · Champion 7ECA
Champion 7ECA · Accident: uncontrolled altitude deviation en route
From Medicine Bow Airport (80V) to Laramie Regional Airport (LAR)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92LA210
- 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
- N9662S
- Operator
- Smith, Leonard C. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Medicine Bow Airport (80V), MEDICINE BOW, WYTo Laramie Regional Airport (LAR), Laramie, WY
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Uncontrolled altitude deviation
- 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 › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Arlington, WY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHILE MANEUVERING, HE ENCOUNTERED DOWNDRAFTS RESULTING IN A LOSS OF ALTITUDE AND AIRSPEED. THE PILOT THEN INITIATED A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING ON A NEARBY ROAD DURING WHICH 'THE RIGHT MAIN TOUCHED DOWN JUST SHORT OF THE ROAD.' THE PILOT THEN LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AND IT CAME TO REST AFTER IMPACTING A BARBED WIRE FENCE. THE PILOT ESTIMATED A TEMPERATURE OF 65 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT AT THE CRASH SITE (8,500 FEET MSL) AND THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS ESTIMATED AT 11,500 FEET. SURFACE WEATHER OBSERVATIONS AT RAWLINS AND LARAMIE (WEST AND EAST OF THE SITE RESPECTIVELY) REPORTED STRONG (20 KNOT) SOUTHWESTERLY WINDS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S FAILURE TO TOUCH DOWN AT THE PROPER LANDING POINT ON THE ROAD. A FACTOR CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92LA210
- Event ID
- 20001211X15782
- Case number
- SEA92LA210
- 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: 9694f46218c84a43f214d94bcac7427fb41b42155187a4048d32b34dc2d3648e; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:37:17.878Z.