DFW07CA014 · Champion 7ECA
Champion 7ECA · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA014
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N2590F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From De Witt Municipal Airport Whitcomb Field (5M1), De Witt, ARTo 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, 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 1,164-hour commercial pilot reported that he departed the airport on a night VFR cross-country flight to an aerial application airstrip where he was employed to perform aircraft maintenance services. Soon after breaking ground, the tailwheel-equipped airplane entered instrument meteorological conditions and the non-instrument-rated pilot initiated a descent out of the fog with the intention to return to the airport. The airplane impacted trees and terrain while maneuvering to regain visual contact with the ground. The pilot sustained only minor injuries; however, a post-crash fire destroyed the airplane. In a written statement, the pilot stated that he departed while it was still dark, and only gained a little attitude before "encountering IMC conditions." The pilot further reported that he was attempting to lower his altitude and turn back, when the airplane impacted the trees. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane prior to the impact. In the safety recommendation block of the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report, the pilot added that since there was no weather reporting stations in the immediate area, it would be "advised to fly only during daytime or on a completely clear night."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the trees and terrain. Contributing factors were the prevailing fog and the dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA014
- Event ID
- 20061114X01658
- Case number
- DFW07CA014
- 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: 6f4e195e525a2a52e4b24a4809202afc135d55a1e748e16a96c7ac578952fda5; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:39:33.717Z.