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CEN09LA561 · Champion 7KCAB

3 Sept 2009 · Stacy, MN, United States

Champion 7KCAB · Accident: loss of control in flight during an emergency descent

From Stacy, MN (private airstrip) to Stacy, MN (private airstrip)

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Event

NTSB case
CEN09LA561
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

Champion 7KCAB

Aircraft type
Champion 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
N2629G
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Stacy, MN (private airstrip)To Stacy, MN (private airstrip)
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
Emergency descent
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

  • Not determined › Not determined

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

A witness reported that the airplane had just taken off and that it sounded like the engine was having problems. He reported that the pilot turned the airplane around and was attempting to return to the airstrip. The airplane impacted the ground, bounced, and came to rest inverted. Both wings were separated from the fuselage, which sustained substantial damage. An on-scene inspection of the engine revealed the gascolator bowl was broken away from the engine. Fuel was present in the fuel line leading to the carburetor. Examination of the spark plugs indicated they were blackened with soot. The air intake box was pushed up into the carburetor. The airplane and engine were not accessible for further examination.

Probable cause

A partial loss of engine power during initial climb for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN09LA561
Event ID
20090904X15954
Case number
CEN09LA561
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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-09-04.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 3dbcb1bbb4aaf7b21821038ef8238f084dc9b53f8b7ba38050bcb2e5d56e6c06; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:53:18.134Z.