CEN23LA002 · Champion 7KCAB
Champion 7KCAB · Accident: fuel related during landing
From FLP · Marion, IN to DVN · Danville, IL
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA002
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 7KCAB
- 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
- N869TT
- Operator
- Dimond Joan M
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From FLP · Marion, INTo DVN · Danville, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1969)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while enroute on a cross-country flight and about 10 miles from her destination airport, she elected to execute a precautionary landing to a field due to low fuel. During the approach to land, the pilot noticed obstacles and attempted to maneuver the airplane away from the obstacles. The airplane touched down smoothly, however, during the rollout, the airplane struck a ditch. The airplane’s left wing contacted the ground and the airplane ground looped. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the outboard section of the left wing. Examination of the airplane at the accident site revealed that both fuel tanks were nearly empty. The pilot reported that she should have stopped earlier to refuel.
Probable cause
The pilot decision to perform a precautionary landing to a field with obstacles which resulted in a ground loop. Contributing was the pilot’s inadequate fuel planning.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA002
- Event ID
- 20221003106049
- Case number
- CEN23LA002
- 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, cause areas. 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: 7a1377ea26b9c76ecee6e5a47c5995025e3f04b2e246c732d94b27a2a8156454; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:10:23.451Z.