SEA07LA093 · Champion 7ECA
Champion 7ECA · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT) to Wenatchee, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA093
- 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
- N6096F
- Operator
- Daniel Morasch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT), Wenatchee, WATo Wenatchee, WA
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear shock absorbing strut › Separation
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 reported that as the aircraft lifted off of the runway, he heard a "sound" from behind the passenger seat. The pilot received a radio call from another aircraft informing him that the "left landing gear did not look right." The pilot could not see the left landing gear leg from his seat, so he made a low, slow pass over an observer on the ground, who informed him via radio that the landing gear was "detached from the strut and dangling from the center of the fuselage." The pilot circled around and made a precautionary landing. The aircraft momentarily touched down on just the right main wheel and tail wheel, and then the left wing lowered and contacted the runway. The pilot was unable to maintain directional control, and the aircraft ground looped to the left, coming to a rest in an upright position. Post-accident inspection of the aircraft by one of the owners revealed that the left landing gear lock nut was missing a lock nut set screw. According to the owner, without the set screw it is possible that the lock nut could have unthreaded, which would have allowed the cylinder assembly to separate from the axle strut assembly.
Probable cause
Separation of the left main landing gear shock absorbing strut during takeoff. A missing screw was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA093
- Event ID
- 20070416X00419
- Case number
- SEA07LA093
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-04-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 594f6d47d7b648d4bbc2a79c9120bb2c624dec36815bf65fd86600233902d987; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:55:44.443Z.