SEA01LA065 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA065
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N30616
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- 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/aural detection
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he listened to the airport's Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) prior to landing. After landing and turning onto a parallel taxiway, the aircraft ran over a 10-foot-long horizontal barricade, which was "sitting in [the] taxiway" approximately perpendicular to the taxiway centerline. The pilot, who was seated in the rear seat of the tailwheel-equipped aircraft (as required for solo flight for the type) at the time, reported that he was doing "S" turns for taxi visibility, but that the barricade was obstructed from view by the nose of the aircraft. Upon striking the barricade, the aircraft's left main gear collapsed and the left wing dropped, striking another barricade. The pilot stated that the presence and location of the barricade were not announced on ATIS. On-site investigation disclosed that the barricade extended to within two to three feet of the yellow taxiway centerline. Review of a re-recording of ATIS disclosed that ATIS announced closure of several taxiways, but did not indicate that barricades were in place on the parallel taxiway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to visually detect the barricade, resulting in a collision with the barricade. Factors included the barricade, and inadequate information on the ATIS broadcast.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA065
- Event ID
- 20010416X00751
- Case number
- SEA01LA065
- 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: 170a08174b27a682cda0c2d3455bf2e011c87af7dba06af19f19a1715b445b0c; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:05:47.947Z.