CEN18LA059 · American Champion Aircraft 7GCAA
Fly Elite Aviation American Champion Aircraft 7GCAA · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Vance Brand Airport (LMO) to Vance Brand Airport (LMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA059
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N519MA
- Operator
- Fly Elite Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vance Brand Airport (LMO), Longmont, COTo Vance Brand Airport (LMO), Longmont, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2004)
- 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and private pilot were conducting an instructional flight when the private pilot made a hard landing and the airplane bounced. The flight instructor heard a "snapping" sound during the landing and subsequently took over the flight controls. He increased engine power to compensate for the bounced landing then landed the airplane on the runway. Upon touchdown, the left landing gear collapsed up and aft. The airplane continued forward on its nose and left wing, then departed the left side of the runway. The left landing gear through bolt was found fractured.
A metallurgical examination of the landing gear through bolt fracture revealed two opposing regions of fatigue comprising 80-90% of the cross-sectional area of the bolt. These were separated by a narrow region of overstress, consistent with reverse bending fatigue crack propagation, which likely grew under low stress as evidenced by the length of the fatigue cracks.
The airplane was subject to a manufacturer service letter for inspection of the landing gear through bolts due to previous instances of cracking and failure. The service letter recommended that the inspections be performed on or before the next 100-hour inspection and at 100-hour intervals thereafter, and at more frequent intervals if the aircraft is used in soft or rough runway operations. The owner of the airplane was unaware of the service letter and stated that the airplane had not received the recommended inspection. Although not required, it is likely that had the service letter been complied with and the through bolt been regularly inspected, the fatigued bolt would have been replaced and the accident would have been prevented.
Probable cause
The failure of the landing gear through bolt primarily due to fatigue during a hard landing, which resulted in a landing gear collapse and runway excursion. Contributing to the accident was noncompliance with the manufacturer service letter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA059
- Event ID
- 20171221X43747
- Case number
- CEN18LA059
- 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: 4555d55a6d7cde62e36bc26313d819ac7492bbdd1f1e3fd1b73ecdb6015476bf; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:13:22.198Z.