LAX07CA187 · Aviat Husky A1-B
Aviat Husky A1-B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Townsend Airport (8U8) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07CA187
- 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
Aviat Husky A1-B
- Aircraft type
- Aviat HUSKY A1-B
- 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
- N246AM
- Operator
- Jon C Kantorowicz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Townsend Airport (8U8), Townsend, MTTo 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
- 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed, 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 airplane stalled and impacted terrain during flight in a canyon at low altitude and a slow airspeed. The pilot was participating in a mountain flying seminar and was flying with a CFI. The purpose of the flight was instructional in nature intending to practice short canyon turns. They flew the first canyon at 300 feet agl, 70 mph, 20 degrees of flaps, along the south side of the canyon, and rode a few thermals. Identifying areas where thermal lift could be found was part of the instructional flight. He then crossed into another canyon that was full of burned out terrain and dead fall trees. This canyon he flew at 300 to 350 feet agl, 60 to 65 mph, and full flaps. The pilot angled his plane towards a rock cliff expecting to pickup thermal lift from the warm rocks. He flew with the wing tip about 10 feet from the cliff. The climb stopped, the airspeed fell off, and the wing stalled. He turned left, applied full throttle, and lowered the nose of the airplane. The descent was rapid as he tried to direct the airplane between deadfall trees into a drainage gully. The airplane's descent continued and he tried to land the airplane as gently as he could. After the collision with the sloped terrain, both pilots egressed the airplane just before it was engulfed in flames. The pilot stated that the airplane and engine had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed while maneuvering at low altitude in a canyon that led to a stall. The pilot's decision to fly along the canyon wall at a low altitude and low energy state was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07CA187
- Event ID
- 20070710X00899
- Case number
- LAX07CA187
- 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: 823bfdb5a0a854201e672027008753e934f72b21955e6a8b47a7f035bdbd5cb5; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:48:25.161Z.