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Atlas / NTSB / BFO85FA011

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event BFO85FA011

1985-01-04 WEST POINT, Virginia, United States Airport · W97 Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N275MA

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

AMERICAN CHAMPION AIRCRAFT 8KCAB

Engine

LYCOMING AEIO-360 SER (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

1 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20060112

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A2BA23

Registrant of record

FRANZOY STEVE

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

AFTER BEING DELAYED AT LEAST 2 DAYS AT YOUNGSTOWN, OH, DUE TO MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS THE PLT DEPARTED AT APRX 1725 HRS WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE WX AT HIS DESTINATION WAS IFT TO LIFR. IN ADDITION, THE PLT WAS SCHEDULED FOR A VACATION AND HAD EXPRESSED HOPES OF DEPARTING ON IT THAT EVENING. THE ACFT WAS SEEN CIRCLING WEST POINT MUNICIPAL ARPT IN AND OUT OF LOW CLOUDS, FOG, AND/OR SMOKE FROM A NEARBY MILL. IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES 6.5 MILES WEST OF THE ARPT, A WITNESS SAW RED LIGHTS, ONE ON THE REAR AND ONE CLOSE TO THE FRONT OF THE ACFT, WHICH WAS ESTIMATED TO BE FLYING AT APRX TREE TOP LEVEL. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1985_BFO85FA011.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗