CEN15FA291 · Champion 7BCM
Champion 7BCM · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Ingleside Regional Airport (TFP) to Ingleside Regional Airport (TFP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA291
- 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
- 2 · 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 7BCM
- 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
- N10497
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ingleside Regional Airport (TFP), Ingleside, TXTo Ingleside Regional Airport (TFP), Ingleside, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 68 years (built 1947)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported seeing the airplane flying "right over the rooftop" of a home before turning along the shoreline at an altitude of 20-50 ft above the ground. He initially thought the airplane was going to land. The witness then observed the airplane climb straight up into a loop maneuver, roll inverted, then descend nose-first into the ground. Another witness said the airplane did 3-4 "wing waves" before it completed ½ of a loop, then descended straight down. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The impact damage to the airplane was consistent with a stall/spin, which resulted from the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack during the attempted loop.
Toxicological testing revealed the presence of several impairing substances, including alcohol, opiod medication (hydrocodone), a benzodiazepine (alprazolam), as well as evidence of withdrawal from cocaine. The pilot was likely significantly impaired by the combination of these substances, and this level of impairment contributed to his poor decision-making, as well as his inability to safely operate the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s ostentatious low-altitude aerobatic display, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin when he exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s impairment due to alcohol and drugs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA291
- Event ID
- 20150704X65647
- Case number
- CEN15FA291
- 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: b65750f42dde1c97e58ac61780d31da63b8a768965b9affbd01626c4845d39e6; retrieved 2026-09-14T19:45:42.365Z.