LAX99LA195 · Beech A36
JAL Flight Crew TRNG Center Beech A36 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Merced Regional Macready Field (MCE) to Willows Glenn County Airport (WLW)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA195
- 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
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N8178N
- Operator
- JAL Flight Crew TRNG Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merced Regional Macready Field (MCE), Merced, CATo Willows Glenn County Airport (WLW)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that while he was on final approach, he heard a pilot announce over the UNICOM frequency that he was entering the left downwind leg for the same runway. Another pilot stated that he was making a straight-in approach for an intersecting runway. The pilot reported that he had planned to taxi the full length of the runway then turn right to the transient parking, but he changed his mind when he heard the approaching aircraft. He stated that after turning left onto a midfield taxiway, he saw a parked trailer off to his right side. He remained on the taxiway centerline watching for the landing traffic, and reported that he was not able to pay attention to his right wing tip. The aircraft swerved to the right and the right wing impacted the tandem semitrailer. The aircraft spun around and the nose became embedded between the two trailers. According to a representative from the flight school, the trailers were being used for seasonal agricultural operations and were not normally on the airport.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain an adequate clearance with a parked trailer while taxiing the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA195
- Event ID
- 20001212X18824
- Case number
- LAX99LA195
- 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: 3498847ca546d1b2445714963afd608de72e5c12f10b806a9d2fccb5e87267ad; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:10:35.877Z.