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Plane CrashesVersion 2

One dead in American Champion 8KCAB accident near Irvington, Alabama

The accident record lists one person on board and one fatality; the National Transportation Safety Board investigation is open and the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 7, 2026, 10:21 a.m. ET
One person was killed when a single-engine came down near Irvington, Alabama, at about 5:45 p.m. local time on December 13, 2025, according to the accident record. This remains a developing story and details may change. The accident record lists one person on board and one fatality, and states that the aircraft sustained substantial damage. The flight is classified in the record as a Part 91 general aviation flight, and the aircraft is identified as an registered . The National Transportation Safety Board is listed as the investigating body. The cause has not been determined. Aircraft registry records describe as a single-engine piston landplane powered by a Lycoming AEIO-360-H1B engine, serial number 1139-2014, registered in the United States. The registry lists the registered owner as BHH Leasing #4 LLC of Pensacola, Florida; the owner of record is not necessarily the operator of the flight, the pilot, or otherwise connected to it. Florida Division of Corporations records list Thomas A. Brown as president and Patrick F. Brown as vice president of that company, and the helicopter industry database Helis.com associates a similarly named entity with Brown Helicopter Inc, a Pensacola parts and components supplier; the investigation has made no finding connecting any of them to this accident. No flight-school, charter or air-ambulance activity was found for the entity in the sources consulted. As a matter of record, the NTSB database, which begins in 2008, contains 20 other cases involving the , of which six involved a fatality. The database also lists one prior case for this airframe, GAA17CA391, on July 1, 2017, at Ferguson, Florida. Neither the type count nor the airframe history says anything about the cause of this accident. Geographic reference data places Irvington in Mobile County, Alabama, at a settlement elevation of 161 feet, 2.4 miles west-northwest of Dale O. Galer Aerodrome (2AL6) and 2.5 miles east of St Elmo Airport (K2R5). Weather observed at Mobile Regional Airport (KMOB), 12.7 miles away and 11 minutes from the reported time, recorded wind from 170 degrees at 4 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, few clouds at 6,500 feet and a temperature of 66°F; that is an instrument reading and not a statement about what happened. The NTSB investigation remains open.

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Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration
N157WB
Type
American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB — single-engine piston landplane
Engines
LYCOMING AEIO-360-H1B
Registered owner
Bhh Leasing #4 LlcThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation
161 ft
Nearest aerodrome
2.4 miles WNW of Dale O. Galer Aerodrome (2AL6)

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 27 Aug 2026, 14:21current

    Tightened attribution, labelled the KMOB observation explicitly as an instrument reading rather than a factor, and added owner-background source links.

  2. Version 15 Aug 2026, 19:14

    First published.

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