WPR11FA061 · American Champion Aircraft 8GCBC
American Champion Aircraft 8GCBC · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Bremerton National Airport (KPWT) to Bremerton National Airport (KPWT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11FA061
- 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
- 1 · 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 8GCBC
- 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
- N273MA
- Operator
- Richard E. Nims · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bremerton National Airport (KPWT), Bremerton, WATo Bremerton National Airport (KPWT), Bremerton, WA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Radar data showed the airplane 3 miles south of the airport on an easterly heading when it turned right and continued to track to the north; radar data terminated about 4 miles northwest of the airport near the accident location. Search-and-rescue personnel found the wreckage in a heavily wooded remote area of mountainous terrain at the 1,300-foot level. Freshly scarred branches and limbs indicated the first point of contact with a series of trees. Wreckage signatures and tree/ground scars were consistent with level flight. According to a certified flight instructor (CFI), the pilot purchased the airplane about 1 month before the accident. The CFI flew the airplane with the pilot for about 26 hours. The CFI reported that he did not endorse the pilot’s logbook and recommended that the pilot find a local instructor for further training. A postaccident toxicological examination showed elevated levels of acetaminophen, metoprolol, and oxycodone in the pilot’s blood and urine. Warnings associated with oxycodone include “may impair mental and/or physical ability required for the performance of potentially hazardous tasks (e.g., driving, operating heavy machinery).” However, the available data was inconclusive about whether the pilot was impaired by the oxycodone. Severe coronary artery disease was found during autopsy, and that, combined with the presence of oxycodone, may have contributed to the accident, but the evidence is inconclusive about whether they were causal.
Probable cause
The pilot did not maintain clearance from terrain for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s use of oxycodone and his severe coronary artery disease.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11FA061
- Event ID
- 20101129X70028
- Case number
- WPR11FA061
- 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 2010-11-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 048049e8d30cd64eab0b507346a2b648a28524084218c54e3ad61debfefa34d6; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:09:44.492Z.