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FTW98LA037 · Cessna 150M

29 Oct 1997 · San Antonio, TX, United States

Cessna 150M · Accident: propeller blast or jet exhaust/suction while taxiing

From San Antonio International Airport (SAT) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
FTW98LA037
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 150M

Aircraft type
Cessna 150
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
N9182U
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From San Antonio International Airport (SAT)To 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
Propeller blast or jet exhaust/suction
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

  • Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Control tower service, inadequate
  • Wake turbulence › Encountered

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilots of Cessna 150, N9182U, held short of Taxiway Delta to allow Boeing 727, N54333, to pass in front of them. After passing, the 727 came to a complete stop at the intersection of Taxiway Delta and runway 12L. The ground controller (GC) offered the Cessna pilots the choice to hold for the 727 or taxi down the taxiway. The Cessna pilots replied that they would hold. The GC then told the Cessna pilots 'okay pass behind him (the 727) taxi to Wright Flyers use caution you got company coming out of Wright Flyers.' The Cessna pilots acknowledged 'behind the 727 (uh) for Wright Flyers then we'll stay right for that outbound traffic.' The GC then cleared the 727 to proceed across runway 12L. As the 727 was throttled up to cross runway 12, the Cessna had moved into the path of the 727's jet blast & was lifted off the ground. The Cessna then struck the surface with its left wing tip and propeller, and was damaged. The pilots of both aircraft had complied with their respective taxi clearances. The Cessna pilot said that he had previously taxied behind large aircraft at the same place with no problems after receiving similar taxi clearance. He also stated that he would have not proceeded behind the 727, if he was aware that the jet was powering up from a 'dead stop.'

Probable cause

inadequate service provided by the ground controller, by clearing the Boeing 727 to taxi after the Cessna 150 was cleared to taxi behind the 727, which led to a wake turbulence (jet exhaust) encounter and damage to the Cessna 150.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record FTW98LA037
Event ID
20001208X09028
Case number
FTW98LA037
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: a33755d05c22ce1fe1eae0a4a4701a7d166fbd5c43b5b94f40b09f0c5d470426; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:14:34.694Z.