LAX82DA205 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: propeller blast or jet exhaust/suction while taxiing
From Polacca Airport (P10) to C · Crystal City, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82DA205
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N2256N
- Operator
- David E. Weil · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Polacca Airport (P10), Chandler, AZTo C · Crystal City, TX
- 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
- 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
- Ground personnel › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Throttle/power control, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Phoenix, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A MCDONNELL DOUGLAS DC-10 HAD LANDED AND PROCEEDED TO THE RAMP AREA. AS HE ENTERED THE RAMP AND STARTED TOWARD GATE 6, THE GREEN SIGNAL LIGHT CHANGED TO RED AND THE PILOT STOPPED WITH THE DC-10'S TAIL POINTED TOWARD THE PARRALLEL TAXIWAY BESIDE RUNWAY 08R. THE PILOT WAS SIGNALED TO STOP SINCE THE JETWAY HAD BEEN MOVED OUT PREMATURELY. JUST PRIOR TO THIS TIME, A CESSNA 140, N2256N, HAD LANDED ON RUNWAY 08R. THE CESSNA PILOT WAS INSTRUCTED TO STAY ON THE RUNWAY UNTIL ABEAM THE REPUBLIC HANGER. INSTEAD OF STAYING ON THE RUNWAY, THE CESSNA PILOT TURNED OFF AND TAXIED ON THE PARALLEL TAXIWAY. AS HE WAS CROSSING (AT NIGHT) BEHIND THE DC-10, THE DC-10 PILOT GOT A GREEN SIGNAL TO TAXI INTO THE GATE. THE DC-10 PILOT ADDED 35% POWER ON 1 ENGINE AND THE JET BLAST BLEW THE CESSNA OVER. NEITHER OF THE GROUND HANDLERS SAW THE CESSNA BEFORE SIGNALING THE DC-10 TO MOVE INTO THE GATE. THE ATC CONTROLLER STATED THAT HE SAW THE CESSNA TURN OFF THE RUNWAY EARLY, BUT SINCE THERE WAS NO CONFLICTING TRAFFIC, HE MADE TWO MORE TRANSMISSIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82DA205
- Event ID
- 20020917X03551
- Case number
- LAX82DA205
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1982-05-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ea5b20566d817a5eb75eaf0e239d98366a49426e25a31ead6a63d57be5fdc8bb; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:05:01.013Z.