DFW07CA177 · Aeronca Champion
Aeronca Champion · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Kirbyville Airport (T12) to Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA177
- 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
Aeronca Champion
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca CHAMPION
- 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
- N9870B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kirbyville Airport (T12), Kirbyville, TXTo Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT), BEAUMONT/PORT A, TX
- 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 · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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, tailwheel assembly › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, encountered
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 lost control of airplane when the steering arm from the tailwheel assembly failed during the initial takeoff roll. The 20,000-hours airline transport rated pilot reported that about 250-feet along the takeoff roll, when the airplane was accelerating through 40 to 45 mph, the airplane started to pull to the right and his full left rudder input was unable maintain directional control. The 2,600-feet long by 80-foot wide grass airstrip featured a 4 to 5 foot deep ditch along the right side of the airstrip. The pilot added that he attempted to get airborne prematurely and the airplane was able to clear the ditch; however, after clearing the ditch, the right wing became entangled in some tall grass and airplane subsequently impacted the ground. The vintage airplane came to rest in an upright position and the pilot and passenger exited the airplane unassisted. An examination of the airplane revealed that the fuselage sustained structural damage. A detailed examination of the tailwheel assembly confirmed that the steering arm was completely fractured. The wind at the time of the accident was reported as calm. The pilot had accumulated approximately 30 hours in the same make and model.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain directional control during takeoff roll as result of the failure of the airplane's tailwheel's steering arm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA177
- Event ID
- 20070813X01172
- Case number
- DFW07CA177
- 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: 1758471e22547d925cae0caf84c8484c7b9e73752df7056fdd0d676e8c0a56a8; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:36:33.150Z.