Jim Air Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Chenega Bay Airport (C05) to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA020
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N6GR
- Operator
- Jim Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chenega Bay Airport (C05), CHENEGA BAY, AKTo Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- First occurrenceThe 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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
- Driver of vehicle › Visual lookout, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated airline transport pilot, with five passengers, was taxiing to the operator's facility at the conclusion of an on-demand air taxi flight. The taxiway connects the main airport complex with outlying operator's facilities around the perimeter of a lake. The taxiway had private airplane tie-down lots located along its length. A snowplow equipped pickup truck was removing snow from a private airplane tie-down spot, located alongside the taxiway. The truck, operated by the owner of the tie-down spot, was equipped with a metal lumber rack in the bed of the truck. While positioning the truck, the owner backed across the taxiway, into the path of the accident airplane. A portion of the lumber rack struck the outboard end of the left wing of the airplane, damaging 3 feet of the leading edge, including several wing ribs. The airport permits limited vehicular traffic on the taxiway, primarily service vehicles and aircraft owners. It is not open for use by the general public. There are two signs located about 50 feet from the point of collision. One sign that faces south reads, 'Caution Aircraft Operation Area - Yield to all Aircraft.' A second sign that faces north reads, 'Aircraft Only - No Vehicles or Pedestrians on Taxiway.'
Probable cause
The failure of the driver of a vehicle to maintain an adequate visual lookout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA020
- Event ID
- 20001204X00002
- Case number
- ANC99LA020
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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. 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: 0346e2cdf5e5ae7206f103aca2d8afd734e359c4e59831c6f5a3a0ac618c55bf; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:00:57.728Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N6GR; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, IUJA.