GAA17CA115 · American Champion Aircraft 7GCAA
AG Flight Pilot Training American Champion Aircraft 7GCAA · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during landing
From Decatur County Industrial Air Park (BGE) to Decatur County Industrial Air Park (BGE)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA115
- 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
American Champion Aircraft 7GCAA
- Aircraft type
- American 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
- N2540F
- Operator
- AG Flight Pilot Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Decatur County Industrial Air Park (BGE), Bainbridge, GATo Decatur County Industrial Air Park (BGE), Bainbridge, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot in a tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that he had completed five touch-and-go landings and maneuvers in the local area before returning for a full-stop landing. While on final approach about 50 ft above ground, he reduced throttle to idle and allowed the airspeed to slow, and the left wing dropped abruptly. The left main landing gear touched down on the runway, the airplane veered to the left into grass, and it then nosed over.
The left wing lift strut and the rudder sustained substantial damage.
The student pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The student pilot failed to submit the National Transportation Safety Board Form 6120.1 Pilot/ Operator Aircraft Accident/ Incident Report.
Probable cause
The student pilot's exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during final approach, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall, and his subsequent loss of directional control after touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA115
- Event ID
- 20170116X45804
- Case number
- GAA17CA115
- 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: 0ed5ce648757ff3018ed08dc079106990a2bf7a7a08f022b20edd24d77e9d7f6; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:57:05.004Z.