ERA18FA230 · Aeronca 7AC
Aeronca 7AC · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Cranland Airport (28M) to Cranland Airport (28M)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18FA230
- 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
Aeronca 7AC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 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
- N65HM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cranland Airport (28M), Hanson, MATo Cranland Airport (28M), Hanson, MA
- Aircraft age
- About 72 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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 and passenger were departing on a local personal flight in the single-engine airplane. Review of airport security video showed the airplane level off about 100 ft above ground level as it passed the departure end of the runway. The airplane then entered a left turn and descended to ground contact. Damage to the propeller blades was consistent with a lack of engine power at the time of impact; however, examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have prevented normal engine operation. Based on the temperature and dew point about the time of the accident, the conditions were favorable for serious carburetor icing at a glide power setting.
Video showed that the airplane operated on the ground at an idle engine power setting for about 7 minutes before takeoff, and it is probable that carburetor ice formed during this time, subsequently resulting in the loss of engine power during the initial climb. Following the loss of power, the pilot attempted to turn back to the runway with insufficient altitude and, during the turn, failed to maintain airspeed, resulting in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, an aerodynamic stall/spin, and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to carburetor icing, the pilot's decision to turn back to the runway shortly after takeoff, and his failure to maintain airspeed during the turn, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, and subsequent aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18FA230
- Event ID
- 20180824X91943
- Case number
- ERA18FA230
- 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: 8dfc17d2fc88a4fba1a32e9ef4b02a72b945210688017d27e9e55948dcfada4f; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:46:47.011Z.