SEA07LA155 · Quad City Ultralight Aircraft Challenger II
Quad City Ultralight Aircraft Challenger II · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Lodi Airport (1O3) to 1O3
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA155
- 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
Quad City Ultralight Aircraft Challenger II
- Aircraft type
- Quad City Ultralight CHALLENGER
- 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
- N204DC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lodi Airport (1O3), Lodi, CATo 1O3
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Failure, total
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Wing, bracing strut › Failure, total
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 said that he was maneuvering at 2,000 feet above the ground when the right wing separated from the aircraft. He said that the aircraft was equipped with a Ballistic Recovery System (BRS) emergency parachute, which he immediately deployed. The pilot said that the fuselage and left wing came to rest in a grape vineyard, and he was able to walk away uninjured. Postaccident examination of the wreckage, by a fellow Challenger II pilot, revealed that the "rony bracket" that attached the forward lift strut to the fuselage failed. The bracket was not attached per the Challenger II building manual. The manufacturer's instructions state that the bolt should only be snug. It also warns to not over tighten these bolts holding the brackets to the hollow tubes and that there should be no more than two threads showing past the nut. The bolt on this rony bracket had at least five to six threads showing. Additionally, the end of the hollow tube was deformed into an oval shape, and not round. The remaining rony brackets did have only two threads showing and they could be rotated by hand, per the manufacturer's instructions.
Probable cause
The improper assembly of the rony bracket which attached the right wing forward lift strut to the fuselage, the subsequent failure of that bracket, and separation of the right wing from the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA155
- Event ID
- 20070621X00770
- Case number
- SEA07LA155
- 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: 97a28184c4b0335696678e4205b809dcec7125b6b424bd9e111bead4ef1d6ae7; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:45:29.833Z.