WPR11LA137 · American Champion Aircraft 8GCBC
American Champion Aircraft 8GCBC · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From Afton Municipal Airport (AFO) to Afton Municipal Airport (AFO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA137
- 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 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
- N885AC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Afton Municipal Airport (AFO), Afton, WYTo Afton Municipal Airport (AFO), Afton, WY
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
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 reported that while flying in a valley at an altitude between 200 to 300 feet above ground level (agl), he obtained visual contact with a set of high tension power lines that were perpendicular to his location. He determined that the airplane was at a high enough altitude to maintain clearance from the wires and initiated a slight climb to gain extra clearance. Shortly thereafter, the airplane struck the high tension power lines and subsequently impacted a snow covered field, which resulted in structural damage to the airframe. Recorded data retrieved from a handheld GPS (global positioning system) revealed that during the last eight minutes of the accident flight, the altitude of the airplane varied between 18 and 384 feet agl. The last recorded data point prior to the power lines showed the airplane at an altitude of about 137 feet agl. Representatives from the electrical company reported that the airplane struck one of the three static wires that were dull gray in color, located about 81 feet above the ground. The representative stated that the static wires were about 26 feet above a set of three main transmission lines that are shiny in color. The representative added that company employees reported that they had difficulty seeing the top static wires in lighting conditions similar to the day of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from power lines while maneuvering at a low altitude in a valley.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA137
- Event ID
- 20110216X00348
- Case number
- WPR11LA137
- 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: b990bdf712d6a6c2f26bf2bf3a04bfc0537ae55613f90ee74bc441bba40b0bcf; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:49:10.588Z.