ANC16FA057 · Champion 7ECA
Champion 7ECA · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Birchwood Airport (BCV) to Birchwood Airport (BCV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC16FA057
- 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
Champion 7ECA
- 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
- N9541S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birchwood Airport (BCV), BIRCHWOOD, AKTo Birchwood Airport (BCV), BIRCHWOOD, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 engine power (total)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to multiple witnesses at the airport, they observed the airplane perform several touch-and-go landings throughout the late morning and early afternoon on the day of the accident. They added that the pilot then landed and taxied to a local fuel vendor's facility and refueled. The pilot then departed. Two witnesses who were near the departure runway reported that, after the airplane departed, they heard the engine making a "pop pop" sound and that it then appeared to lose power. Another witness near the runway reported hearing the engine "sputtering" and added that the airplane appeared to stall. All the witnesses reported that they observed the airplane turn right steeply, that its right wing and nose dropped abruptly, and that it then descended in a steep, nose-down attitude, consistent with an aerodynamic stall. A postimpact fire immediately ensued, which destroyed the airplane.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The witnesses reported hearing noises consistent with an engine misfiring and it was likely losing power; however, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined based on the postaccident examination. After the loss of engine power, the pilot attempted a steep turn at low altitude, during which he failed to maintain proper airspeed and exceeded the airplane's critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and a loss of control at too low of an altitude to recover.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain proper airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack during a steep low-altitude turn following a loss of engine power, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent loss of control at too low of an altitude to recover. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined because postaccident examination revealed no mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC16FA057
- Event ID
- 20160813X90947
- Case number
- ANC16FA057
- 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: 4239dc44d51a09bcfb1702a38db831944a1df1409ecb7b30dead64f2fd488ea6; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:58:32.298Z.