CHI97LA298 · Cessna 172G
Cessna 172G · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA298
- 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
Cessna 172G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N4375L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), ILTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
- 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 · 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Wrong taxi route, selected
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After landing, the pilot was instructed to turn onto a specific taxiway. The pilot turned onto a service road an airline crew bus was using. Shortly after turning, the airplane's left wingtip collided with the left rear side window of the bus. According to the pilot, the bus had turned to its right as the airplane approached it. The on-scene investigation revealed a bent and cracked rear wing spar and buckled upper wing skin aft of the left wing fuel tank.
Probable cause
the pilot's selection of the wrong taxi route (service road) and not maintaining clearance between his airplane's wing and a bus.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA298
- Event ID
- 20001208X08819
- Case number
- CHI97LA298
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-09-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2a1b06352eb68d6d3b623aa7ac09cf8c3e987d7b6340d8a2c2b9401739237a50; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:08:44.357Z.