CEN12LA112 · American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB
American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Union County Airport (MRT) to Union County Airport (MRT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA112
- 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 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
- N161PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Union County Airport (MRT), Marysville, OHTo Union County Airport (MRT), Marysville, OH
- 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 · aerobatics
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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
The pilot was performing low-level aerobatics for a ground-based observer for the purpose of renewing his low-level aerobatic competency waiver. As the airplane was pulling out from a dive while performing a maneuver described by the observer as a “modified clover-leaf/split-‘S’,” the airplane struck the ground in a wings-level attitude. The observer noted that nothing sounded out of the ordinary with respect to engine operation during the flight. Examination of the airplane after the accident revealed no anomalies that could be attributed to a preexisting failure or malfunction. Based on the witness description and the postaccident examination, it is likely that the pilot misjudged the aerobatic maneuver and had insufficient altitude to recover from the ensuing dive.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain sufficient altitude from the terrain while performing low-level aerobatics.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA112
- Event ID
- 20111223X32647
- Case number
- CEN12LA112
- 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: 6ca6ae04285587fe70bef4d4519c06dcee0abebc99eaa468495c4952b01ea157; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:05:55.848Z.