WPR10LA121 · American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB
American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX) to Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA121
- 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 Aircraft 8KCAB
- Aircraft type
- American Champion 8
- 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
- N101BY
- Operator
- Donald H. Sefton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX), Fallon, NVTo Fallon Municipal Airport (FLX), Fallon, NV
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI), seated in the front seat, reported that the airplane started to drift to the right during the landing roll. The student pilot, seated in the rear seat, applied left rudder to counteract the drift, but the airplane continued to the right. The CFI took control of the airplane and applied full left rudder and full power; however, the airplane continued to the right until the left main landing gear collapsed and the airplane nosed over. The airplane was equipped with dual lap belt aerobatic harnesses. Postaccident examination revealed that, when full left rudder was applied, the front seat pilot's upper lap belt caught on the rear seat right rudder/brake pedal assembly and activated the right brake. As a result of this finding, the manufacturer issued an Airplane Flight Manual Supplement (AFMS) that provided guidance for pilots to examine the front seat lap belts for proper tension and clearance from the rear seat rudder pedals during their prestart and preflight checks. In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB CE-10-39) that addressed proper installation of the dual lap belt system and informed pilots of the issuance of the AFMS pertaining to the lap belts.
Probable cause
Interference between the front seat lap belt and the rear seat rudder/brake pedal assembly that prevented normal operation of the rudder/brake system, which resulted in the pilots’ inability to maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA121
- Event ID
- 20100129X43547
- Case number
- WPR10LA121
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-01-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b3fb614d9c1bfe11d32698d190e44da23eaf7ecd50cdafd73b9404123232841b; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:39:11.408Z.