SEA05LA179 · American Champion (ACAC) 7KCAB
American Champion (ACAC) 7KCAB · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Richland Airport (KRLD) to Richland Airport (KRLD)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05LA179
- 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
American Champion (ACAC) 7KCAB
- Aircraft type
- American Champion (acac) 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
- N7546T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richland Airport (KRLD), Richland, WATo Richland Airport (KRLD)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Fluid, oil › Leak
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Lubricating system, oil tubing › Loose
- Powerplant › Seized
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, who had just finished practicing a series of aerobatic maneuvers, was descending back toward the airport when the engine suddenly quit. He attempted to restart the engine, which momentarily fired, but it did not stay running. The propeller, which initially was windmilling after the power loss, eventually came to a stop, and the pilot was unable to get the engine to rotate by activating the starter. He therefore made a power-off forced landing in a nearby open field, and although the flare and touchdown were uneventful, during the landing roll, the aircraft encountered a pair of eight inch high berms and nosed over onto its back. A post accident inspection of the aircraft and engine determined that the fitting that attaches the oil pressure gauge line to the engine had come loose, and oil had escaped from the area around the fitting. Further inspection revealed that the loss of oil lead to extensive thermal and mechanical damage to the primary lower end engine components, and that the engine had seized as a result of that damage. A review of the aircraft records did not reveal any recent maintenance in which the oil pressure measuring system would have been expected to have been manipulated.
Probable cause
The oil pressure gauge line fitting coming loose from the engine, resulting in the loss of oil to the point where internal engine components were starved for oil, leading to extensive internal damage and seizing of the engine. Factors include a set of eight inch high berms in the field where the pilot found it necessary to execute his forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05LA179
- Event ID
- 20050831X01349
- Case number
- SEA05LA179
- 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: 189fb9ab0701c845df74747e20f7a4ade07ef6ac653999e7cdbd7fdbd1bae3a8; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:27:07.862Z.