ERA25LA189 · Champion 7GCBC
Champion 7GCBC · Accident: fuel related on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA189
- 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
Champion 7GCBC
- 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
- N9117L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1970)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the second landing of an instructional flight to obtain currency in tailwheel airplane takeoffs and landings. The first takeoff and landing were uneventful. During the second approach, while abeam the numbers on the downwind leg of the pattern, the pilot receiving instruction reduced engine power, applied carburetor heat, and began a descent. While turning from base leg to final, the instructor told the pilot to increase engine power to not fly below the proper glidepath; the pilot advised that the engine was not responding to throttle input.
The instructor took control of the airplane and lowered the nose to maintain airspeed. He then verified that the fuel, mixture, primer, switches, and carburetor heat controls were in the correct position. About 300 ft above ground level (agl), the instructor realized the airplane was too low to clear a road and guardrail just before the runway, so he chose to turn right to land in a field. During the landing, the airplane struck a wire fence, the right main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane came to rest on its right wing.
Postaccident examination revealed no airplane or engine anomalies that would have affected normal operation except that the carburetor heat control and valve were found in the mid-range position. An icing probability chart indicated “Serious Icing – glide power” for the recorded temperature and dew point about the time of the accident. Engine manufacturer service instructions included a caution to not use a mid-range position for carburetor heat control on aircraft, like the accident airplane, that were not equipped with a carburetor air temperature gauge.
The mid-range position of the carburetor heat control, along with the ambient temperature and dew point, could have resulted in carburetor ice after reducing engine power on approach, resulting in a total loss of engine power. However, the position of the carburetor heat control before the accident could not be confirmed due to impact damage to the airbox.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power on approach due to carburetor ice.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA189
- Event ID
- 20250428200074
- Case number
- ERA25LA189
- 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: cdd2a9398e47dceddd4be5c7fd3753b9dd1358c9cf48e150f620fa562087590a; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:51:12.263Z.