FTW85LA240 · Champion 7GCAA
Champion 7GCAA · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Hillsboro, TX to McKinney National Airport (TKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85LA240
- 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 7GCAA
- 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
- N7595F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hillsboro, TXTo McKinney National Airport (TKI), McKinney, TX
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD JUST TAKEN OFF ON RUNWAY 16 AT THE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT IN HILLSBORO, TX. THIS WIND, AS REPORTED BY THE PILOTWAS 220 DEGREES AT 16 KNOTS WITH GUSTS TO 22 KNOTS AND THE TEMPERATURE WAS 102 DEGREES. TWO PERSONS AND 16 GALLONS OF FUEL WERE ABOARD. AFTER CLIMBING TO ABOUT 500 FEET AGL ON RUNWAY HEADING THE PILOT BEGAN A LEFT TURN TOWARD DOWNWIND ANDTHE AIRCRAFT STALLED. HE RECOVERED FROM THE STALL BUT WAS UNABLE TO ARREST THE DESCENT RATE BEFORE GROUND IMPACT OCCURRED. THE SUBSEQUENT HARD LANDING COLLAPSED THE MAIN LANDING GEAR AND DESTROYED THE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85LA240
- Event ID
- 20001214X36780
- Case number
- FTW85LA240
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 8da20d76013be5975a5ced4b0ddfae21fb39d64a856955839e0721113565808c; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:49:21.762Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "THE PILOT HAD JUST TAKEN OFF ON RUNWAY 16 AT THE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT IN HILLSBORO, TX"; the departure was not recorded.