ATL07LA073 · Culver, Aurther L. Seawind 3000
Culver, Aurther L. Seawind 3000 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From O3NC · Carolina Beach, NC to Danville Regional Airport (DAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07LA073
- 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
- 1 · 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
Culver, Aurther L. Seawind 3000
- Aircraft type
- Culver Aurther SEAWIND 3000
- 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
- N666AC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O3NC · Carolina Beach, NCTo Danville Regional Airport (DAN), Danville, VA
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/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 private pilot, who did not hold an instrument rating, contacted an Automated Flight Service Station and requested a weather briefing for an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight. The pilot was provided a complete weather briefing which included the following weather conditions at his destination: clouds 400 feet broken, 800 feet overcast, visibility 1 3/4 statute miles in light rain and fog, temperature 45 degrees Fahrenheit, dew point 45 degrees Fahrenheit, wind 060 degrees at 8 knots, and an altimeter setting of 29.90 inches of mercury. The pilot acknowledged the weather briefing and then filed an IFR flight plan. While on approach to the pilot's planned destination, the airplane collided with trees. All airplane components were observed at the accident site and no anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance/altitude while operating in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of an instrument rating, his improper decision to operate in IMC, a low cloud ceiling, and reduced visibility.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07LA073
- Event ID
- 20070502X00500
- Case number
- ATL07LA073
- 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: 453f043127159ab475f72cf2428df4923b7569194a1bf1e2807f1a2467287092; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:44:32.685Z.