NYC06CA195 · Champion 7KCAB
Champion 7KCAB · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Plymouth Municipal Airport (PYM) to Plymouth Municipal Airport (PYM)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06CA195
- 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
- N7533F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Plymouth Municipal Airport (PYM), Pylmouth, MATo Plymouth Municipal Airport (PYM)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation/exhaustion
- 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 preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot of the Champion 7KCAB, he performed a preflight inspection of the airplane, and estimated the fuel level by observing the fuel gauges, checking the fuel computer, and "sticking [his] finger in the tank." He did not visually check the amount of fuel in the fuel tanks. The pilot then departed on a banner towing flight, and after 40 minutes of flight time the engine lost total power. The pilot subsequently performed a forced landing to the water below, resulting in substantial damage to the airplane. Examination of the fuel tanks after the airplane was recovered from the water revealed that the right tank was empty, and the left tank contained about 1/8 inch of liquid spread across the bottom of the tank. Following the accident, the pilot learned that during the previous flight the fuel computer had been reset to indicate full fuel. Following that flight, the airplane was not serviced with fuel.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06CA195
- Event ID
- 20060907X01310
- Case number
- NYC06CA195
- 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: 65e166e7ad7291b791e5c2bad5cf50300247467f8146b89072ba6ae207dc76a6; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:42:18.923Z.