MIA01LA012 · Cessna 150L
Cessna 150L and Pitts S-2B · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01LA012
- 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 · Cessna 150L
- 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
- N11938
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Leesburg International Airport (LEE), Leesburg, FLTo 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
- 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 · Pitts S-2B
- Aircraft type
- Pitts S-2
- 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
- N331DM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Leesburg International Airport (LEE), Leesburg, FLTo 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of N11938, a Cessna 150L, stated that she saw the Pitts S2B, N331DM, as it turned onto the taxiway and proceeded in her direction. She said she began maneuvering the Cessna to the right to avoid the Pitts, and she did not observe the Pitts being maneuvered to avoid her airplane. She said the Pitts turned directly into her path, so she maneuvered her airplane further to the right to avoid an head on collision with the Pitts. She said she then maneuvered the Cessna to the left, and stopped short of the grass in order not to strike a taxiway light with her airplane's propeller, and at that time the left wing of the Pitts collided with the left wing of her airplane. The pilot of the Pitts said that he had been observing the Cessna, and it had been stationary prior to him proceeding onto the taxiway. He added that he could see the Cessna until he was directly in front of it and made the turn. As he taxied the Pitts, he had been watching for traffic, but was unable to see directly in front, due to the configuration of his aircraft, and it was apparently during that time that the Cessna was "off the nose" of his airplane, and out of sight, that the Cessna started moving forward. He said that he saw Cessna off to his left side for a second or two before the impact, and was able to stop, but both airplanes collided wing to wing. There were no indications that either pilot ever attempted to establish radio communications with the other.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot of N331DM to maintain a proper visual lookout and ensure adequate clearance, which resulted in a collision with N11938. A factor in the accident was the failure of each pilot to communicate with the other.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01LA012
- Event ID
- 20001212X22215
- Case number
- MIA01LA012
- 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: 7a708bad4135a95b55510f992f083c13408193802f479246f4703da1aaa7acda; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:22:13.573Z.