DFW07CA001 · Champion Citabria
Champion Citabria · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Hidden Valley Airpark (5TX0) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA001
- 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 Citabria
- Aircraft type
- Champion CITABRIA
- 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
- N6379N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Hidden Valley Airpark (5TX0), Shady Shores, TXTo 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 collision with object
- 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 › 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 1,769-non-instrument rated private pilot and his passenger departed from a nearby private airstrip approximately 1130 and proceeded to a motor park racetrack that was under construction. The landing on the 1,800-foot long hard packed dirt strip was uneventful. After spending 40 minutes to an hour at the construction site, the pilot and his passenger boarded the 1967-model tailwheel-equipped airplane for the return trip. The pilot again utilized the 1,800-foot dirt strip for departure on an easterly direction. As the airplane was departing, the pilot reported in the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident Report (NTSB 6120.1) that the airplane "became uncontrollable due to unknown causes." Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, who responded to the accident site, revealed that the airplane's right wingtip collided with a parked minivan and the airplane cart-wheeled several times before coming to rest in an inverted position near a steep embankment. The pilot, who was occupying the front seat, was extracted from the airplane by fire-rescue personnel with the aid of the "jaws of life." The passenger on the aft was able to egress the airplane unassisted and suffered minor injuries. A person on the ground that was standing by the parked vehicle was also injured. The pilot reported that he had no recollection of the flight or the ensuing accident. At 1253, the automated surface observing system at the nearest airport, located about 10 miles southeast of the accident site, reported clear skies and wind from 050 at 7 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a parked vehicle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA001
- Event ID
- 20061205X01733
- Case number
- DFW07CA001
- 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: 23e338fb081ebeb9f3e857ad357eacaa1eb1f7b03f45dae25c30b0dd3c5f9d74; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:53:37.838Z.