CEN11LA219 · Aeronca 7AC
Aeronca 7AC · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Delphi Municipal Airport (1I9) to Delphi Municipal Airport (1I9)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA219
- 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
Aeronca 7AC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 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
- N82429
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delphi Municipal Airport (1I9), Delphi, INTo Delphi Municipal Airport (1I9), Delphi, IN
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 on ground
- 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 systems
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was conducting tailwheel proficiency work at the time of the accident. The proficiency maneuver involved adding engine power and increasing taxi speed until the tailwheel lifted off of the runway. At that point, engine power was reduced and the airplane slowed to a normal taxi speed. He stated that prior to the accident, he increased engine power for the maneuver. When the tailwheel rose off the runway, he reduced engine power and began to slow the airplane. A gust of wind caused the airplane to yaw to the right and depart the runway pavement. At that point, the pilot elected to add full engine power in an attempt to take off from the grass area adjacent to the runway. However, the left main landing gear separated from the airframe and he decided to reduce the engine power to idle. The pilot was unable to maintain control when the airplane encountered a muddy area. The left wing and fuselage were damaged. He did not report any failures or malfunctions with the airplane prior to the event.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control, resulting in a runway excursion, and the subsequent separation of the left main landing gear for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA219
- Event ID
- 20110309X22523
- Case number
- CEN11LA219
- 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. 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: d28530920bfb64e0cd0414506078b176afb6e47deef4c935537e8c95ed3f1ce3; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:53:34.888Z.