WPR25LA300 · Aeronca 7AC
Aeronca 7AC · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA300
- 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
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
- N82003
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB), Paso Robles, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 79 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
- 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane landed in a three-point configuration. Soon after touchdown the airplane veered right, and the left wing pitched up. The pilot depressed the left rudder pedal and reduced power. However, the airplane continued to veer right, departed the runway and impacted a chain link fence, which resulted in substantial damage to the right-wing strut. The pilot reported observing skid marks and a long trench consistent with the right main landing gear position in the accident path. The right main landing gear was found partially separated at the accident site. Postaccident examination of the right main landing gear by the accident pilot and his mechanic revealed that the oleo strut fractured and separated due to a failed weld on the upper attachment end, which resulted in a partial separation of the right main landing gear after landing.
Probable cause
A loss of directional control during landing due to the partial separation of the right main landing gear oleo strut from a failed weld.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA300
- Event ID
- 20251001201762
- Case number
- WPR25LA300
- 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: 18a3761e6db5062d41f68c0f086abb47ca25c3d3d0044757ef45d52c82f9dea5; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:24:42.143Z.