CHI01LA236 · Champion 7KCAB
Champion 7KCAB · Accident
From Shamrock Field (6G8) to Shamrock Field (6G8)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA236
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- N7537F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shamrock Field (6G8), Brooklyn, MITo Shamrock Field (6G8), Brooklyn, MI
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Undetermined
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the support ground crew, the aircraft had been fully fueled prior to the 1540 departure and had flown with a banner for approximately 40 minutes prior to the accident. The ground crew reported that the aircraft had returned to the airport to drop the banner, retrieve a new banner, and continue with the flight over the Michigan International Speedway. According to the ground crew, the banner did not release from the aircraft during the low approach, and the aircraft executed a go-around in order to enter another traffic pattern. The ground crew stated that the aircraft climbed toward the north and noted no anomalies with the aircraft or its operation. The aircraft was observed to descend and attempt a landing into a cornfield north of the airport. The pilot reported that he has no recollection of the accident. No anomalies were found with the airframe or its flight controls that could be associated with any pre-impact condition. The banner was found still attached to the aircraft and was not obstructing any flight controls. The engine was successfully test-run while still attached to the airframe. No anomalies were found during the test-run that could be associated with any pre-impact condition.
Probable cause
The forced landing for undetermined reasons. A factor to the accident was the corn crop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA236
- Event ID
- 20010802X01587
- Case number
- CHI01LA236
- 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: e237d1740bebfc63fc81743e196a3dcf0250fd6e7e30bd9c16ea128bd22945ee; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:58:08.472Z.