LAX99LA025 · de Havilland TIGER MOTH DH 82A TIGER MOTH
de Havilland TIGER MOTH DH 82A TIGER MOTH and Aeroventure Clubs Cessna 152 · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA025
- 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
Aircraft 1 · de Havilland TIGER MOTH DH 82A TIGER MOTH
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland TIGER MOTH DH 82A
- 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
- N838KC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sonoma Valley Airport (0Q3), Sonoma, CATo O69
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N68459
- Operator
- Aeroventure Clubs
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O69To 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 · 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- 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
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the Dehavilland Tiger Moth, N838KC, had turned off the runway after landing and was taxiing to the refueling pit. The pilot did not see another airplane on the taxiway during the turn. The Cessna 152, N68459, had just finished refueling and radioed that he was entering the taxiway to taxi to the active runway. When the Cessna was on the taxiway the pilot saw the Tiger Moth on the taxiway. At first the pilot was not able to determine which direction the Tiger Moth was moving in and as soon as he was able to tell that the Tiger Moth was headed towards him, he radioed that he was on the taxiway. The Tiger Moth continued towards the Cessna performing 'S' turns down the center of the taxiway. The Cessna again radioed that he was on the taxiway, and then attempted to exit the taxiway when it became apparent that the Tiger Moth did not see him. The Cessna reported that during the turn, he saw the front seat passenger turn his head in the direction of the Cessna. The left wings of both airplanes collided during the turn to avoid each other. There were no mechanical anomalies noted with either airplane.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilot in the Tiger Moth to see and avoid traffic. A contributing factor was the delayed reaction of the student pilot in the Cessna to initiate a turnoff of the taxiway once it became apparent that the other airplane did not see him.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA025
- Event ID
- 20001211X11455
- Case number
- LAX99LA025
- 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: 65509616dd187baeed2b4b2d97965344f418954e6b788161ba00aa71b8bf9f0b; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:22:49.287Z.