SEA08CA088 · American Champion (ACAC) 7GCAA
West Valley Flying Club American Champion (ACAC) 7GCAA · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From New Jerusalem Airport (1Q4) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08CA088
- 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
American Champion (ACAC) 7GCAA
- Aircraft type
- American Champion (acac) 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
- N75SE
- Operator
- West Valley Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From New Jerusalem Airport (1Q4), Palo Alto, CATo 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) was demonstrating a simulated engine failure during takeoff initial climb by executing a 180-degree turn back to the airport. As the CFI was completing the maneuver, he initiated a go-around by applying full power. Subsequently the airplane stalled and impacted the runway in a left-wing low attitude. The CFI stated he was aware of the tailwind condition he would encounter as the airplane completed the 180-degree turn and that upon exiting the airplane, he noted the wind to be considerably higher than he had expected. Examination of the airplane revealed that the left and right wings sustained substantial damage. No anomalies were noted with the engine or flight control systems.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate compensation for the tailwind condition and failure to maintain adequate airspeed that led to an inadvertent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08CA088
- Event ID
- 20080403X00423
- Case number
- SEA08CA088
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 5edb111f1003cb439c4082d3928615f9a14858ad8aebd36ecf85835bfb30a6a5; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:29:15.336Z.