MIA97LA247 · Piper PA-18A-150
Piper PA-18A-150 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA247
- 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
Piper PA-18A-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N3985P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bainbridge, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The tractor had been sweeping the tarmac most of the morning, and was equipped with an amber strobe light attached to the roll bar and flashing hazard lights on it's fender. All of the lights were found to be in working order when a police officer checked them. The airplane had landed and was taxiing east on the tarmac. The tractor was traveling west tarmac when the accident occurred. The driver of the tractor told the police, '...he was sweeping the tarmac and observed the aircraft exit the taxiway and start towards him...the aircraft made an 'S' turn and came straight at him and the tractor...he was in fear of being hit by the aircraft and tried to get out of the way before the aircraft reached him, but he hit the aircraft trying to get out of the way.' The pilot showed the police officer that he had 'very limited visibility' from the cockpit when he was on the ground. The pilot explained to the police officer that, '...after he left the taxiway and got onto the tarmac he made a left turn so he could look to his right and the a right turn so he could look to his left. He said the tarmac appeared to be clear of any traffic so he straightened the aircraft and continued to travel east...moving very slow while on the tarmac. After straightening the aircraft...[he] said he heard and felt the crash of the tractor and aircraft...he never saw the tractor or the sweeper.' The passenger said, '...he did not see the tractor. His visibility was also limited to the sides of the aircraft.' The pilot did not return the NTSB Form 6120.1/2, and his account of the accident are not known.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot to see and avoid the tractor resulting in an on ground collision. A factor in this accident was the limited forward visibility from the cockpit of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA247
- Event ID
- 20001208X08901
- Case number
- MIA97LA247
- 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: 73ae3098fb3d8298ba53e9416f4801db8a97cee527f234d5036a9583e0c787e6; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:37:17.102Z.