DEN05CA073 · Champion 7ECA
Champion 7ECA · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From 3V5 · Fort Collins, CO to Shalz Field (CBK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05CA073
- 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 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
- N11065
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3V5 · Fort Collins, COTo Shalz Field (CBK), Colby, KS
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that they had just filled the tanks with fuel and the airplane was loaded "right at gross weight." He stated that approximately 200 feet agl and 3/4 down the runway, the airplane "stopped climbing and started sinking." The pilot attempted to increase the airspeed by lowering the nose; however, the airplane continued to descend. The pilot reduced the power to avoid the power lines. The airplane impacted a tree and came to rest on its right side causing substantial damage. According to the FAA inspector who traveled to the scene, the airplane was overloaded and exceeded the gross takeoff weight by at least 18 pounds. According to the Fort Collins-Loveland METAR (aviation routine weather report), the temperature was 16 degrees Celsius (C), the dew point was 04 degrees C, and the altimeter setting was 29.80 inches. Calculated density altitude was 6,500 feet.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation which failed to assure adequate takeoff performance to clear obstacles. Contributing factors included the miscalculated weight and balance and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05CA073
- Event ID
- 20050614X00764
- Case number
- DEN05CA073
- 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, 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: 3274fbda6392088bc41590af3dfcc8adbdfd90a0ef9560226a87b325846557a7; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:01:54.756Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The airplane impacted a tree and came to rest on its right side causing substantial damage", not destruction.