WPR15LA036 · Champion 7AC
Champion 7AC · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From West Fork Lodge Airport (4U7) to Conner, MT
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA036
- 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
Champion 7AC
- Aircraft type
- Champion 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
- N84462
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Fork Lodge Airport (4U7), CONNER, MTTo Conner, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 68 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that he was attempting to land the light sport airplane on a private grass airstrip surrounded by mountainous terrain. While maneuvering for landing, the airplane suddenly entered into a steep, right-wing-low bank. The wings then leveled momentarily before the airplane impacted the ground. The passenger in the rear seat of the airplane stated that he felt a downdraft or windshear just prior to impact. A post-accident examination of the airplane found no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported the wind as light and variable with 5-10 knot gusts; however, he stated that during previous flights in the area, he experienced unexpected severe gusts and terrain-induced turbulence, followed by complete calm.
The airplane was not equipped with a stall warning system or flaps. Since the airplane was maneuvering for landing approach at low airspeed, a sudden gust of wind or shift in wind speed or direction could have resulted in a rapid loss of airspeed, followed by an aerodynamic stall as the airplane reached its critical angle-of-attack. Due to the airplane's low altitude, the pilot likely did not have sufficient time to recover from the stalled condition prior to impacting terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA036
- Event ID
- 20141107X22147
- Case number
- WPR15LA036
- 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: b9eb08713f427112c949c8865d58dcc739ebd389343f297a7a7c3d20c52151f0; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:55:10.200Z.