IAD96LA052 · Douglas DC-8-62
Douglas DC-8-62 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From an unrecorded airport to Ontario International Airport (ONT)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96LA052
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-8-62
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-8
- 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
- N803AX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Ontario International Airport (ONT), Ontario, CA
- 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 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
- Taxi · to 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
- Company/operator management › Crew/group coordination, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Company personnel dispatched the aircraft while they simultaneously monitored the company snow removal crews on the taxiways and runways. Two supervisors, in separate vehicles with VHF/FM radios, were overseeing the snow removal operation. The pilot-in-command stated that his attention was on the snowbanks on the right side of the taxiway, when he suddenly noticed the snowplow at the left side of the airplane. The pilot was unable to stop the airplane before it struck the snowplow. The snowplow driver stated that he did not hear nor see the airplane taxiing, and the snow removal supervisors did not alert him to the airplane's movements. He believed that the airplanes were using a different runway, and that he was authorized to conduct snow removal operations on the taxiway. Postaccident examination revealed that the aircraft was on the taxiway centerline, and the snowplow was located on the left side of the taxiway. The visibility at the time of the collision was one mile with light snow and fog.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's inadequate visual lookout and the company/operator's inadequate crew/group coordination and communication during taxi and snow removal operations. Related factors were the snowy weather conditions affecting visibility and the snowplow on the taxiway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96LA052
- Event ID
- 20001208X05414
- Case number
- IAD96LA052
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 3a98374d967cf3f93b9e3542dceb7ff33c240950a7064249fac23989a9b240f5; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:43:32.220Z.