CEN22LA114 · Aeronca 7AC Champion
Aeronca 7AC Champion · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during takeoff
From Cook Municipal Airport (CQM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA114
- 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
Aeronca 7AC Champion
- 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
- N2923E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cook Municipal Airport (CQM), Cook, MNTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 76 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he taxied the ski-equipped airplane to a snow-covered area adjacent to the runway. He made two passes over 8 inches of fresh snow to create a makeshift runway. He then added engine power and started to take off toward the west. At rotation speed he heard and felt a “whack” along with a “bump,” and deceleration. The airplane felt “mushy” as it became airborne, and the pilot leveled the nose to maintain control. The pilot observed the right ski hanging straight down; with the airplane approaching trees, he pushed the nose down and landed in the remaining open area. The airplane slid about 20 ft before it came to rest; its lower fuselage structure sustained substantial damage. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operations. After the accident occurred, the pilot noted that the fresh snow obscured various ice chunks and frozen drifts.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to ensure the snow-covered takeoff area was safe, which resulted in a collision with ice and subsequent landing gear damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA114
- Event ID
- 20220204104594
- Case number
- CEN22LA114
- 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: 9e1d7aa1c8081e1247cea05edd7e01c34bfc806188f857f6b034e7d3e537389b; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:56:01.472Z.