MIA02FA001 · Champion 7AC/BCM
Champion 7AC/BCM · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Bessemer Airport (EKY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02FA001
- 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
- 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 7AC/BCM
- 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
- N82049
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bessemer Airport (EKY), Bessemer, ALTo not recorded
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Champion 7AC/BCM aircraft was observed by numerous eyewitnesses, including some of the pilot's family members, to pass closely overhead their respective residences, and then commence a series of tight 360-degree turns at about 60 to 70 feet agl, over his mother's back yard. Following a "pop" which most witnesses characterized as an engine backfire, the aircraft was observed to dive into the ground. Examination of the wreckage site revealed severe postcrash fire damage to the cockpit and aft engine area. Although most engine accessories were partially consumed by fire, the engine manufacturer's investigator could find no cause to preclude normal engine operation, precrash. Examination of the airframe revealed no condition that would have caused a loss of control, precrash. The carburetor was examined by an FAA Repair Station and the carburetor idle metering tube diameter was found to be smaller than what the Stromberg carburetor specifications called for.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering at a low altitude, resulting in an uncontrolled descent and inflight collision with the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02FA001
- Event ID
- 20011015X02087
- Case number
- MIA02FA001
- 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, coordinates. 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: 1d1cac9ceae059238f99a47ab3ede9d8539fd6648979efab2a8fad3899ae4136; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:20:05.238Z.