CEN13CA530 · Aeronca 7EC
Taildragger Aeronca 7EC · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Plattsmouth Municipal Airport (KPMV) to Plattsmouth Municipal Airport (KPMV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13CA530
- 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 7EC
- 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
- N4348C
- Operator
- Taildragger
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Plattsmouth Municipal Airport (KPMV), Plattsmouth, NETo Plattsmouth Municipal Airport (KPMV), Plattsmouth, NE
- 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 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While departing runway 16 for a local flight, the private pilot in the front seat was piloting the airplane, while the commercial pilot followed along on the controls from the rear seat. When the airplane became airborne, it yawed to the right and crossed the left edge of the runway. Aircraft control was lost as the airplane's right wing suddenly dropped and the right main landing gear contacted the ground. The airplane descended and spun 180 degrees. Substantial damage was sustained to the fuselage. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failure prior to the accident. The wind at the time of the accident was reported calm; however, an ultralight pilot, who had flown shortly before the accident airplane, reported a 5-10 knot wind from the south just above the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13CA530
- Event ID
- 20130906X51808
- Case number
- CEN13CA530
- 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: 5641dfa2268c0b505c01658aa302350608af3256386ef164491bf0220d7d1bc2; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:46:50.342Z.